The Minister of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone, Dr. Austin Demby has on Friday May 6th, 2022 participated in the one day Ministerial Summit at the King Fahad Conference Center in Dakar on the Mercy Ships International symposium on surgical obstetric and anesthesia care systems strengthening in Africa.

Prior to the Ministerial meeting, the two-day International Symposium included the delivery of an assessment on the current state of surgical, obstetric, and anaesthetic care in Africa including gaps, prioritized targets, implementation strategies and investments within the 47 countries of Africa as defined by the WHO Regional Office for Africa. ​

As a follow up to that, the ministerial summit discussed results and proposals for a continental roadmap for strengthening access to surgical, obstetric and anaesthetic care in Africa by 2030.

The Health Ministers went into break out groups where they looked at the regional action plan 2022- 2030 for the scaling up and investment in surgical, obstetric and anesthesia systems strengthening in Africa by 2030 funding mechanism. They also looked at the Dakar declaration on the access to equitable, affordable and quality surgical, obstetric and anesthesia care in Africa.

The Minister of Health and Sanitation Dr Austin Demby did a presentation on the Regional Action Plan 2022 -2030 for the scaling up and investment in surgical obstetric and anesthetic systems strengthening in Africa by 2030 funding mechanism.

Mercy Ships has served Sierra Leone and performed five humanitarian missions (1992, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2011). Mercy Ships completed more than 6.000 surgical interventions, strengthened medical capacity of more than 12.500 of health staff and health community leaders and treated more than 18.000 dental patients.

Dr. Sartie Mohamed Kenneh, Chief Medical Officer  and Mr Sulaiman Phoray-Musa, Director Partners Coordination Ministry of Health were part of the Sierra Leone Health Ministry delegation.