Curbing the challenges of health services for the aged, Health Care for the Aged (HCA), a Community Based Organization has on Sunday 21 August continued its humanitarian work by providing free medical services for old people in hard-to-reach communities in the Western Area of Freetown. According to the Founder of HCA, Mohamed S. Bah, in 2016, he witnessed a scene where a pregnant woman was carried on an ordinary blanket from the Gravel Boom Community, which is one of the deprived communities within Freetown, to a hospital that was miles away from their community.
The community he said is deprived, isolated, and not motorable making it difficult to access the community whenever something tragic happens, it takes the grace of God to salvage it, especially with pregnant women.
The Founder explained that on that day, while some of the community members were carrying a pregnant woman to the hospital, one of them tripped and the woman fell, miscarried, and died.
“This terrible and pathetic scene created shock and dismay for me, so I turned this sorrowful event into inspiration and immediately considered humanitarian support to that community and other deprived communities. I was disturbed by that incident, the woman, the unborn baby, and the negative impact on their relatives, all of which came to mind. I immediately called a meeting with chiefs and other authorities in Gravel Brook and five other surrounding communities, and then I started with basic medical assistance to some vulnerable people in those communities” the founder of Health Care for the Aged said
“I am targeting those older people that are helpless and mostly found in hard-to-reach or deprived communities, especially in Freetown and its surroundings, they need our attention and support; that is externally the call I am adhering to”. He said.
The of HCA disclosed that, in 2022, there will be 771 million people aged 65 years or over globally, 3 times more than the size in 1980 (258 million). He further disclosed that the older population is projected to reach 994 million by 2030 and 1.6 billion by 2050. The current life expectancy for Sierra Leone in 2022 is 55.55 years, a 0.67% increase from 2021.
Mohamed S. Bah informed that, according to the 2015 Population and Housing Census, about 3.5% (246,284) of Sierra Leone’s total population is aged 65 and over, of which 47.4% and 52.6% are male and female respectively.
He pointed out that HCA is a health and social rights policy advocacy Community-Based Organization dedicated to working with the Vulnerable Aged, especially from 60 years upwards. He said the organization aims to support the selected beneficiaries with basic health assistance and at the same time advocate for policies to meet the rights and dignity of deprived aged who have been abandoned on the fringes of humanity despite their contributions to nation-building in their productive years.
“Since its inception in 2016, the organization has been embarking on a series of interventions to better the health and other conditions of older people in some deprived communities in Western Area Urban and Rural as well as Falaba and Koinadugu Districts in the North,” he said…
“I have been using my finances and that of a few other members to run the organization and the medications we provide for them. We are overstretched now and need support, therefore, we are calling on all to aid and support us in his journey” he Explained.
The HCA Founder said the organization has rendered support to over 2,956 people in some deprived communities, adding that they provided mobile phones to communities to alert them of an emergency, do screening, and provide medication and other medical assistance to those communities.
One of the beneficiaries, Yambu Kamara, expressed thanks and appreciation to the Founder of Health Care for the Aged for providing free medical services for them, a gesture which she described as a “good initiative” and called well-meaning Sierra Leoneans to embark on the same.
By Mohamed Amara Gando
