Montserrado County Superintendent Florence Brandy
Montserrado County Superintendent Florence Brandy has underscored the need to provide better and improved healthcare facilities acrossย rural Liberia.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day training on Gender Mainstreaming & Local Governance, opportunities to respond to sexual gender-based violence including sexual reproductive Human Rights, Supt. Brandy said the lack of better and improved healthcare facilities in rural Liberia is also an attributing factor to deaths in rural Liberia mainly among women and children.
She pointed out that the more improved healthcare facilities in rural Liberia, the better it will be for residents in rural Liberia.
According to her, it is the right of every woman to have a better facility to give birth.
Emphasizing further, she indicated that providing better health care facilities to women is key, stating that some people in the current and modern times and age still die in childbirth due to, among other things,ย poor health care facilities as well as poor services from health care providers.
At the same time, the Montserrado Supt. frowned at some healthcare providers who in most cases render poor services to patients, especially pregnant women during delivery.
“Imagine being in labor pain and seeing a nurse on a phone, on the internet, and abandoning her patients, while others throw talks and words in your face including insults and this is unfair and needs to be changed,” she added.
Moreover, Madam Brandy called for more training to be given to healthcare providers in order to desist from such an unprofessional attitude.
“Reception from health caregivers is poor and unfriendly and it is still happening today but it needs to stop,” Madam Brandy indicated.
She used the occasion to re-emphasize the need to see local government structure through decentralization, which she averred,ย is key to the central government.
“Central Government cannot do it alone but needs the involvement of local government that works directly with the locals,โย she noted.
Madam Brandy mentioned that when they work together, they can better achieve even more.
Speaking on the issue of sexual gender-based violence, Madam Brandy asserted that whenever people speak about violence against women, the more it gets on the increase.
“What are we not doing right on this issue, is it that we are not prosecuting violators or is it that we are not implementing what should be implemented,โ she intoned.
“We see that women are still being abused over the period and we need to elevate the discussion and find a way to address it. Let us ensure that we help strengthen the justice system to avoid our women and girls being violated,โ she uttered.
Meanwhile, the two-day training organized by Her Voice Liberia with Support from Medica Liberia focused, among other things,ย on promoting Gender Mainstreaming and Gender Based Violence (GBV), Sexual Reproductive Health andย Rights (SRHR) issues affecting women and girls in county sitting.
Participants at the training highlighted poor health care facilities in their area as well as poor reception from health care givers.
They also indicated the increase in sexual gender-based violence in their communities as well as violence meted against them by their husbands and spouses over the period.
Meanwhile, the participants pledged and committed to creating more awareness through Town Hall Meetings on the issue of Sexual and Gender Based Violence as well as taking the awareness to the Schools and villages through local dialers, among others.
