Written By: Ibrahim M. Sesay, Grand Cape Mount County
Grand Cape Mount County – A one day meeting to discuss the official closure of the Ebola Treatment Unit in Sinje Grand Cape Mount County has taken Place in Sinje Town, Garwula District.
The meeting was organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Partnership with the Grand Cape Mount County Health Team to solicit the views of the Citizens of Grand Cape Mount County on the preparation phase of the closure.
Speaking during the meeting, the Medical Coordinator of IOM in Liberia Doctor Mohammed Rifard disclosed that activities at the Sinje ETU will come to an end at the end of this September 2015 but said that the Mobile Clinic will continue to December 2015. The Mobile Clinic is a medical service provided by the IOM to people living in the rural communities of Cape Mount who do not have easy access to health centers in the county.
Dr. Rifard also said that border surveillance and active case finding will also continue as part of its post ETU operations in Grand Cape Mount. Also speaking, the county health officer Dr. Loraine Copper appealed to the IOM not to demolish all of the structures in the Ebola Treatment Center so as to help the County Health Team of Cape Mount to carry out some of its administrative and medical works from the ETU. She stressed that the CHT spend close to ten thousand United States Dollars annually on rent because it (CHT) does not have its own structure.
Dr. Copper mentioned that the County Health Team currently used private facilities to store medicines and also to do administrative work. She called on the people of Cape Mount especially those in Sinje Town to allow the IOM to turn the ETU facilities over to the County Health to be used by them.
For their part, the people of Grand Cape Mount appealed to the IOM to leave the structure and agreed for it to be used by the CHT. They further called on the CHT and the IOM to include the local chiefs, traditional leaders and women groups in the EVD training to better prepare them to respond to any suspected case in their communities.
The meeting brought together county authorities, civil society groups, youth group, UNMIL and the religious leaders.
