Maternity and children's hospital, Freetown

From the outside, Freetown's Ola During Children’s Hospital and Princess Christian Maternity Hospital looks like any regular hospital.
And certainly the lick of paint makes it appear as though progress is afoot. But once inside, it is clear that despite a promise to provide free healthcare to children under five and breast-feeding mothers, everything is in short supply - including those all important free medicines.
Not only that, the hospital is clearly under resourced and has no proper water supply.
The children’s ward is particularly chaotic. Many have TB and have to stay for about a month or more. Their mothers often stay with them and have to bring food as what the hospital supplies is not enough.
Malaria is a huge issue, as is malnutrition.
In the mainly deserted and desolate labour wards, mothers in distress, often unattended. In Sierra Leone most women give birth in the community clinics or at home. Only those who are ill make it to hospital, which is what gives the wards such a depressing air.
One girl has been there a week she tells us. Just waiting. Clearly petrified. She might not be well educated but she no doubt knows the statistics and lost friends or family members.

Another very young couple – the girl says she is 16 but it’s not likely – are in the special care unit with their tiny baby, waiting to be admitted. Wrapped in a single blanket the father holds him carefully but doesn’t really know what to do with sickly creature he is now responsible for. Although it’s a quiet day there is no rush to tend to the very sick infant.
Perhaps there is a feeling it is too late. And that is often the case. By the time they get to hospital it really is as a last resort. And it is by taxi probably crammed in with countless others, along dusty beaten up unpaved roads.
That’s the reality. So while the statistics for the hospital show that eight women died in child birth here last November, you can be sure in every community around the country that is being replicated and on a even greater scale.