Salimatu Sesay Follows Her Heart

Salimatu Sesay joins her sons Abubakarr (left) and Alusine for a family portrait at their home in Koidu, Sierra Leone. (Photo: © Michael Duff/World Health Organization)

Salimatu Sesay had spent years trying to solve the mystery of her relentless headaches, fever, and pain. And for years, clinicians had misdiagnosed her persistent symptoms as malaria or the flu. Sometimes they even dismissed her symptoms as a bout of the common cold.

“I visited numerous clinics and hospitals in Freetown, but no one could identify the problem,” said Sesay, a small business owner in Sierra Leone. “It wasn’t until my sister-in-law suggested coming to Koidu that things changed.”

In Koidu, the capital of the Kono District in the country’s Eastern Province, a PEN-Plus clinic had recently opened its doors to people with severe noncommunicable diseases. There clinicians were able to use echocardiography to diagnose Sesay’s condition properly: rheumatic heart disease.

“Knowing the cause of my problems brought relief,” she said. “At the same time, though, I learned that surgical treatment isn’t available in Sierra Leone.”

Despite that setback, Sesay made a life-changing decision: to relocate her family five hours to the east to be able to continue receiving free monitoring and treatment at the PEN-Plus clinic.

“I’m currently taking medication from the clinic to manage my symptoms,” Sesay said. “If I stop, my symptoms return, which is why I’ve chosen to stay close to the clinic.”

The move necessitated closing her small business in Freetown. Yet without the free services at the PEN-Plus clinic, she said, her very survival would be uncertain.