Ganta, Nimba County – The Chief Medical Doctor at Ganta Rehab Center Hospital has urged the Government of Liberia(GoL) to include the facility in the national budget, starting with US$10,000.
By D. Franklin Doloquee
Dr. Marie Fofana Yarsiah explained that the hospital employs 69 health workers including doctors, nurses, and support staff but only eight receive government salaries.
The rest are volunteers relying on dwindling donor funds.
“Since the hospital’s establishment, donors like the German government have kept us going,” Dr. Yarsiah said.
“But global challenges have cut funding, creating major financial problems.”
She made the plea during a donation ceremony hosted by the Office of Vice President Jeremiah Koung and the National Lottery Authority.
The event distributed 25 kg bags of rice and other essential food and non-food items across Nimba County.
Donors, staff, patients and community members gathered in the courtyard amid the rhythmic clack of crutches on concrete, the soft whir of therapy balls on worn mats and the earthy scent of freshly turned soil from a nearby vocational garden.
Wheelchair-bound survivors chatted with therapists, their faces lit by hope as children darted between legs, mimicking mobility exercises. “Before these donations from the lottery via the VP’s office arrived, we scraped by with small-small things,” Dr. Yarsiah said in earnest, simple English, her voice rising over the chatter.
“This is a big thank you. But we have bigger needs for this facility to thrive.” Here, patients weave baskets from palm fronds or hammer nails into wooden stools, rebuilding not just bodies but livelihoods.
From nurses guiding wobbly first steps on parallel bars to counselors coaxing smiles from the newly paralyzed, the center’s 61 unpaid staff keep operations afloat on “fragile donor funding,” leaving them in a “weak way,” as Dr. Yarsiah put it.
“Our thought is our right to say this loud and clear,” she declared, gesturing toward the donors in the humid afternoon air, thick with the herbal tang of boiled neem leaves from adjacent treatment rooms.
“Ganta Rehab Center should be placed on the national budget.
Yes, even US$10,000 we know how to stretch it wisely.”
Dr. Yarsiah recounted past advocacy, including appeals to the Nimba County Caucus of the House of Representatives, alongside the County Health Officer and the county administration led by Superintendent Kou Meapeah Gono and Dr. Robertline Ponnie Dolo.
These efforts secured US$30,000 for upgrades like sky-blue paint on therapy room walls, smoother wheelchair ramps and reinforced corridor rails scarred by years of determined grips.
She emphasized that the US$10,000 allotment would serve as a vital starting point to hire more staff, improve services and address the health needs of Nimba’s people.
