Bomi County – The Rotary Clubs in Liberia has dedicated a triage health facility worth US$38,000 on the compound of the Suehn Mecca Clinic, Bomi County, as a way of buttressing the effort of the Liberian government in improving the country’s health sector.
Report by Augustine T. Tweh – [email protected]
Serving as Chief Launcher, the District Governor of the Rotary Club, Aristide Tino Adediran said the Suehn Clinic Triage was built by the Rotary club in Liberia following the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease to respond to crises through the provision of food to quarantine families, supplying of equipment to health facilities among others.
According to the District Governor, the project is aimed at buttressing the effort of the government to have more robust health facilities in combating diseases in the country.
Mr. Adediran noted that Liberians need robust health facilities to prevent and contain the outbreak of infectious and contagious diseases.
He added that the health sector of Liberia has played a very cardinal role during the fight of the Ebola virus disease, and there is a need to work with the government to build more health facilities for the betterment of the Liberian people.
Governor Adediran said Rotarians in Liberia undertook the initiative in an effort to reflect a permanent change in treatment, and to prevent diseases from spreading in the country.
“I am very glad to be here today to dedicate this unique facility. I was in neighboring countries, and today I am in Liberia to dedicate this project.
A very big project has been built in your country that you need to be proud of and maintain for the good of the population.
During the Ebola we were here, after the Ebola were are still here, thank you for receiving us and giving us your full support to build this project in your district and country at large,” he said.
Also speaking, the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Francis Kateh thanked the Rotary Club in Liberia for the initiative undertaken, something he described as a big boost to health sector.
Dr. Kateh added that many people have lost their lives during the Ebola crises, including nurses due to the lack of triage, and as such the initiative is meaningful to every Liberian.
“We realized that many people have lost their lives including nurses and many Liberians.”
“In Kakata at many hospitals 29 health care workers got infected, out of the 29 health workers, 22 of them died. If we have had a Triage, that wouldn’t have happened, and so this is a lifesaving thing.
We also realized that the first public service that the Rotary has ever gotten into was building a public toilet, and years later they are still building toilets.
So we are humble very humble that you were able to do similar thing in Liberia,” Dr. Kateh said.
The Deputy Health Minister used the opportunity to caution health practitioners of the Suehn Mecca Clinic to put their patient above everything as their profession demands.
“There are sacrifices that lot of people make in order to save lives, we need to look at these things and flag them out, so that our people can realize that is not just when the bad thing happens, then health care worker are being cursed.
But there are lot of good people, and as I always said among the good apple, one bad apple spoils the entire branch.
So this is a message to all of the health care workers that we have—those that are committed, dedicated and please, we need to do the best we can to make sure that our patients come first” the Deputy Minister averred.
For his part, the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the Suehn Mecca Clinic, Tamba A. Borbor, expressed gratitude to the Rotary Clubs in Liberia for the construction of a modern triage health facility to the clinic.
According to the OIC, the new triage will help ease some of the difficulties that were faced by health practitioners in the clinic.
In an interview with FPA, Borbor said the lack of vehicle to transport patients to Tubmanburg or Monrovia is another major challenge that the clinic is faced with.
“The one only ambulance we have in Tubmanburg to refer patient is down and sometimes when the patient is in critical condition and you call for the ambulance, it can delay. So for now we are in need of ambulance to refer our patients, because we receive 35 to 50 daily,” he added.