More patients with free health care in S.Leone

Dozens of women, some with babies strapped tightly to their backs, wait patiently in a crowded, sweaty attendance ward at Sierra Leone's main maternity hospital for their turn to be treated, for free.

Piercing cries fill the wards as exhausted, overworked nurses administer injections to squirming toddlers in the hospital, overwhelmed since a free health care system for women and young children was launched just over a year ago.

"Two to three children are using one bed and a similar number are hooked on to one oxygen concentrator," paediatrician Sarian Bull told AFP.

"We are overwhelmed by the pressure and we are working extra hours to bring relief to those who seek our services," she said.

The Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in the capital does not have running water, beds are overflowing, drugs aren't always available and there aren't nearly enough staff, but the show must go on.

It has to -- in Sierra Leone only one in four children live to see their fifth birthday, according to UN figures.

Security guard Hassan Conteh's wife has just given birth, and both mother and son are healthy -- an even bigger feat than usual in a country where one in eight women die in pregnancy or childbirth, most never making it to a hospital.

In the developed world, this figure is one in 8,000.

"My wife gave birth to my first son at this same hospital five years ago. I spend nearly 500,000 Leones ($116, 81 euros) at that time in doctor's fees only. Medicines were extra," says Conteh.

He adds that the free health care system is "the answer to the poor man's fight for good health for our kids."

The 90 million dollar (67 million euro) free healthcare programme for pregnant women, nursing mothers and children under five years old was launched in April last year with donor aid from UNICEF, the World Bank and the World Health Organisation and the UK Department for International Development.

With 70 percent of the country's population of six million earning less than a dollar a day, healthcare is a luxury in the west African nation.

For Sierra Leone, whose health system was in tatters after a decade-long civil conflict, the free health care program is mind-boggling in its ambition and implementation.

"It's very hard, and it is far harder in a country like Sierra Leone," says Kate Gross of the African Governance Initiative set up by former British prime minister Tony Blair, which helps with the "nuts and bolts" of delivery.

But amid the challenges, she says initial government statistics show this increased access to treatment has led to an "astonishing 80 percent reduction in child deaths from malaria, and a 60 percent reduction in maternal mortality in hospitals."

"It is incredible, a real exemplar for the rest of Africa. And there is an awful lot to do, there is masses to do" she said in a telephone interview to AFP in Dakar, citing dire sanitary conditions and the challenge of having drugs available all the time.

Health superintendent Ken During said official results from the free healthcare programme would be released soon.

"However there is all indication that the free healthcare is working for the benefit of all especially those that previously had little money to access the system."

Sallay Sesay, cuddling her sick baby, is positive about the initiative, even if it hasn't gone too smoothly.

"I am having good attention although I sometimes have to purchase drugs from nearby pharmacies because of a shortage in the hospital. The system is however, God-sent."

Sierra Leone has one doctor for every 17,000 people and one nurse for every 8,000, according to health ministry statistics.