Partners In Health Details a PEN-Plus Clinic Opening in Sierra Leone
A new PEN-Plus–dedicated clinic in Kono District marks a pivotal step in providing care to people living with severe, chronic noncommunicable diseases.
Nurse Lilian Kumba Phillie works with a patient in the screening room of the new PEN-Plus clinic at Koidu Government Hospital in the Kono District of Sierra Leone. (Photo: Chiara Herold/Partners In Health)
In February, an audience of patients, clinicians, Ministry of Health officials, and community members gathered to celebrate a historic milestone for Sierra Leone: the launch of a purpose-built PEN-Plus clinic at Koidu Government Hospital.
Partners In Health, the implementing partner for PEN-Plus in Koidu, participated in the ribbon-cutting event and recently published an article detailing the clinic’s services.
The article notes that, in 2018, Koidu Government Hospital began offering services for patients with severe noncommunicable diseases such as type 1 diabetes, sickle cell disease, and childhood heart disease. The clinic quickly became a referral point for people living with such conditions not only in Sierra Leone but also in neighboring Guinea and Liberia. Yet the demand soon outpaced the available resources.
“The patient-to-clinician ratio was high, and the space was small,” Dr. Eleyias Tebeje, an internist and the PEN-Plus lead at Koidu Government Hospital, was quoted as saying in the article. “There was no privacy, making it impossible to deliver diagnoses confidentially.”
That challenge gave rise to the vision for today’s larger clinic, whose entrance now features a plaque highlighting the collaboration between Partners In Health, the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health, and the NCDI Poverty Network.
In February, the NCDI Poverty Networked sponsored a study tour in Sierra Leone that enabled Ministry of Health officials from seven Francophone countries to witness patients receiving treatment for their severe, chronic noncommunicable diseases at the new PEN-Plus clinic at Koidu Government Hospital. (Photo: Andrea Fleurant/NCDI Poverty Network)