My experience with the health system in Sierra Leone (Pt. 1)

One thing I always say to people in Sierra Leone, “Salone man lek mericine!” (Sierra Leoneans love medication). So, the minute someone is sick, they start diagnosing themselves. It is probably: malaria, typhoid or ulcer. Yes ulcer. I imagine everyone in Sierra Leone has ulcer and someone once said to me, “well most people don’t eat well or go hungry.” Or maybe it is the Cassava Leaves? Haha Let me stop, I am no doctor. This is just my personal experience. Don’t come and hold me o! I also don’t know Sierra Leone law about some of these things, where I come from the law is different, so maybe in Salone, this is ok. Where are our medical experts?

Anyway, the minute someone is sick they don’t usually go to the hospital, they sometimes know a nurse or knows someone that knows someone that knows someone. That nurse prescribes them stuff and that’s where treatment ends. OR I have heard people say “I feel like malaria” or something to that extent and go straight to the pharmacy and get whatever medication they desire.

Pharmacies  in Sierra Leone are like churches and mosques, they can be found I feel like on every corner and some of them just give you whatever medication you want with no prescription. I don’t even know the credentials of most people who have a pharmacy. It is no wonder that there is a bit of opioid addiction going on in Sierra Leone among the youth that gets joked about, but not enough attention given I think. It is not uncommon for people to say that they think someone is on Tramadol or some other medication that causes serious issues over long-term use. In fact, when I discovered who my stalker was last year (a story for another day), someone told me that they had some mental health issues due to them abusing Tramadol. I have seen family members who call nurses to come to the house to hang a drip because they think they need drip. A “drip” of what?

It is no wonder people don’t get well in this country. Half the time, they are probably not even dealing with what is really ailing them, because some people don’t want to do tests. Some people have said to me that they’ve been sick with the same thing so many times, they know what it is, so they don’t need to go to the hospital. When they do go to the proper channels, get tested and all of that, the cost alone will deter you, if you want a very fine medical facility and I have first-hand experience of this. Before this year, I had never been hospitalized as an adult except for when I had surgery on my elbow for a fracture and that was an overnight thing. This year though, I got hit by a trifecta: Malaria, typhoid, and…. bronchitis. Ok let me start from the beginning.

I had been having a temperature from the start of the week. I partly felt it was exhaustion and times, like in the middle of the week, while at work, I felt like I really needed to go home. This is unusual for me because I am always working overtime. So, on Wednesday, I didn’t go home early, I decided to stick it out and not be on my feet, but when I got home around 7 pm, I literally put everything down crawled into bed, shivering with a high temperature and slept till the next morning. I felt so good the next day, so I thought perhaps I was just exhausted. Thursday evening, I began to feel ill again. Around 5am Friday, I knew something was wrong. I am not a complainer and I turned to my partner, shook him awake and said, “I think I need to go to the hospital.” Now, mind you it was 5 am. I couldn’t think of ONE hospital where I could go. I’ve never had an emergency situation, so we laid there, while my temperature climbed, and I felt more ill.

Around 6, I messaged my boss that I had to go to the hospital and probably won’t be in to work. We waited till about 8am when I knew one of the hospitals, that was top notch was open. I had gotten tests done there before and it is one of the best, but very expensive hospitals. I wanted to go there though because at least I knew that all the tests would be accurate at least and if need be, I could get treatment elsewhere. I could hardly walk by that time. In the waiting room I was laying down sleeping. After all the tests, the doctor called me to the room and told me I had Malaria and Typhoid and then he looked at me and said “and x-ray shows a chest infection, bronchitis.” Bronchitis? That’s probably why my voice had gotten hoarse and I could hardly speak by that point. I don’t smoke or anything like that. The doctor looked very serious and he said to me “you need to be admitted right away.” Instead of thinking of my life, I asked: “how much would that be?” He told me he didn’t deal with those matters, but he would recommend immediate admission because if I walked out of the hospital it could mean serious issues for me.

I went to the waiting room and we asked for a cost estimate. When the paper came, I thought the amount was in Leones. For one day of admission, the tests that were done, the medications I would need etc, I thought hmm “1,266, leones is not bad,” because I was reading that 1,266 as one million, two hundred and sixty-six thousand leones, which is around $130. Then I saw USD. I should have known. All of this would be $1,266. Whhaatt!!?? I didn’t have the energy to even process that information, and we talked about payment plan options and all of that, but eventually decided that I would pay for the tests and seek treatment elsewhere. The doctor wasn’t done with me though and called me into his office again: “I seriously do not recommend you leave this hospital right now. You are in a bad state. If you leave, you will have to sign a release that we warned you and you are going on your own accord.”

Continued in next blog post