BBC News - Sierra Leone gives new hope to mothers and children

Health care workers feared a free health care plan would lead to a flood of patients and longer working hours

By Umaru Fofana  BBC News, Freetown

Isata Sesay is busy packing up to leave the country's main maternity referral hospital in the densely populated east end of Freetown.

She is obviously relieved that she and her two-day-old twins survived their ordeal.

Last year, I watched five women die in the space of two nights at the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital.

In March alone, 11 out of 281 pregnant women who gave birth at the hospital died of severe infection, bleeding, obstructed labour and pregnancy-induced hypertension, says Princess Christian's Medical Director Dr Ibrahim Thorlie.

The situation is no better for Sierra Leone's new-born children.

The United Nations ranks the country as the worst place in the world for a child to be born, with 159 out of 1,000 dying before they turn five.

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tags: sierra leone, health care