Reconstruction of the Special Care Baby Unit

A somewhat belated birth announcement: 

On the 12^th of December 2011, the Minister of Health and Sanitation was invited to the Ola During Children’s Hospital to attend a ceremony to officially handover the new neonatal unit to the Ministry.

In the previous months, many people worked hard to improve the neonatal unit. The original unit was small and cramped, with limited beds for neonates and no place for the mothers to stay. In order to increase capacity and to improve the quality of care provided to our smallest patients, the hospital and its partners decided to make some significant changes. With funding from UNFPA and oversight from Welbodi Partnership, the old neonatal ward was transformed into a mothers’ lodge and the adjacent maternity ward was vacated to accommodate a new, upgraded neonatal ward. The much-needed reconstruction project doubled the size of the unit and provided a separate outpatient consultation room, an isolation room, a place for mothers to stay near their children, and more space overall.

So it was with great excitement and enthusiasm that the UNFPA country representative handed over the unit to the Minister of Health and Sanitation. The ceremony was followed by a tour through the new Special Care Baby Unit which now has the capacity for 40 neonates. This new unit is a step in the right direction to improving neonatal care in Sierra Leone.