Suchergebnisse

This article presents the views of four young disabled people from Sierra Leone, India, Liberia and Sri Lanka regarding what the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities means to them and the experiences that they had in promoting the Convention. All of the four contributors are involved in Leonard Cheshire Disability's Young Voices project. This project was initiated by Leonard Cheshire Disability during the negotiation of the UN Convention, which enabled disabled people from developing countries to make a direct contribution to the negotiation process, including attending the Ad Hoc Committee meeting in New York. The long-term objective of the Young Voices project is to nurture and develop the skill of young disabled people in developing countries to become the future leaders of the disability movement. The project is now embarking on its second stage, with disabled people receiving training on how to effectively lobby their Governments to sign and ratify the UN Convention as well as working with the media (including film making) in their own countries to raise the political profile of disability issues. Eighteen (18) young disabled people, one from each of the participating countries involved in Young Voices project, attended the conference jointly hosted by Leonard Cheshire Disability and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, that took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 19th - 22nd May 2008. Further information regarding the conference can be found at http://www.lcint.org/?lid=4048

The increased demand for basic emergency obstetric and neonatal care (BEmONC) services in Sierra Leone since the launch of the nationwide free maternity care initiative in 2010 has strained the capacity of the system to provide high‐quality care. In 2014, members of our research team visited all 97 functioning primary health‐care facilities in Bombali district in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone to evaluate gaps in access to BEmONC. Although most facilities had the equipment necessary for maternal and neonatal care, these were often not in satisfactory condition. Most of the facilities did not stock all of the essential medicines for BEmONC, and less than 10 percent of the facilities had sufficient stocks of unexpired and properly stored medications. Stronger supply chains will be necessary to improve health system performance in Sierra Leone, reduce maternal mortality, increase neonatal survival, and achieve targets associated with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This edited collection explores how African artists use their art to articulate the need for a return to the traditional African vision of communal solidarity, hospitality, and respect of humanity. The collection highlights the artists' exposure of the catastrophic effects of the abandonment of African humanism on African culture and life.

Although hand hygiene (HH) is the most effective intervention to reduce the spread of infections, there are limited data on HH facilities, policy, and compliance in sub-Saharan Africa. This cross-sectional study is aimed at assessing HH using the WHO HH self-assessment framework, HH technical reference manual, and a modified infection control self-assessment tool in two hospitals in Sierra Leone. Only 10% and 9% of regional and capital city hospitals had running tap water, respectively. Veronica buckets were the resources for HH in 89% of units in the regional hospital and 92% of units in capital city hospital. Constant supply of soap and alcohol-based hand rub was available in 82% and 68%; and 74% and 79% of units in the capital city and regional hospitals, respectively. Only 10% of the units in both hospitals had hand-drying facilities and functional sinks. Overall HH compliance for the two hospitals was 18.6% and was higher in the regional (20.8%) than the capital city (17.0%) hospitals. The HH levels for the capital city and regional hospitals were 277.5 and 262.5 respectively. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still challenges with HH compliance in Sierra Leone. It is, therefore, necessary to strengthen the HH multi-modal strategy.