Stories written by Poindexter Sama

SIERRA LEONE-HEALTH: Free Health Care Not Really Free

By Poindexter Sama and Jessica McDiarmid
There is a brief bustle and then a woman wails as the small body is wrapped in cloth and set on a cot by the door of the paediatric ward. Nurses in pristine white uniforms continue to pad quietly around the large room at Ola During Children's Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital city.
Regulators say many of the drugs sold on the informal markets in Sierra Leone are fake or substandard, posing a huge risk to the public. Credit: Poindexter Sama/IPS

SIERRA LEONE: Substandard and Counterfeit Drugs Flood the Market

By Poindexter Sama and Jessica McDiarmid
Bubble-wrapped pills are scattered across the crude table in a busy market beside crumpled boxes of lubricant, paracetamol and anti-fungal powder.