Projects
Zwedru, Liberia: Is there a doctor in the County?
06 Aug 2009 13:16:00 GMT
Written by: Merlin
Surgery at Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital. Photo courtesy of Merlin
Amy Waddell is a communications intern for medical aid agency Merlin who’s working in Liberia. The West African country is recovering after 14 years of civil war, which resulted in 250,000 deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Merlin is working with the health ministry to rebuild hospitals and clinics, supply medicines and equipment, and train and supervise health workers.
At midnight an ambulance arrives at Zwedru’s Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital in remote Grand Gedeh County. It brings a woman in labour, desperately needing a Caesarean section to save her and her unborn child.
Mr. Desuah-He is Grand Gedeh's only anesthetist
Minutes later, staff in the hospital emergency room (ER) radio Penny, Merlin’s Project Coordinator. They tell her there’s no surgeon to perform the operation – the hospital doctor is away and there’s no public health surgeon in the entire county right now, let alone Zwedru town. It’s at this point, with crackling radio in hand, that Penny wanders into our front room where I’m sitting.
Penny calls Wellington Dweh, the hospital administrator – also just woken by the ER. He knows of a new surgeon who is working with a local charity and is on his motorbike within minutes, making his way across town to wake the surgeon to see if he will help.
Penny and I wait anxiously, willing the radio to sputter an update.
Usually Dr. Amagashie would step into the breach. He’s the on-call surgeon and the hospital’s only doctor. He’s also Acting Medical Director, as well as the only eye specialist for the six counties of the South East Region.
Not one of these roles is his official job: Dr. Amagashie is in fact the County Health Officer (CHO). This week he is in the capital, Monrovia, attending meetings at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, fulfilling his CHO responsibilities.
With Dr. Amagashie away, Penny starts running through alternatives if the newly arrived surgeon cannot perform the Caesarean. There is only one: the mother will have to go to Ganta, a five-hour drive away.
“She will die,” Penny says, looking at me anxiously. “She’s already travelled for more than two hours on bumpy roads – by the time these cases reach us they are so urgent.”
The radio crackles into life; it’s Wellington, asking permission for a Merlin vehicle to collect the surgeon and take him to the hospital. Penny sighs, relieved, and can’t speak her approval into her hand-held radio quick enough.
Soon we hear the Merlin driver affectionately report that he’s reached the Old Man’s House – he’s talking about Mr. Desuah.
Mr. Desuah is 66 years old. He is Grand Gedeh’s only anesthetist and will have to be in attendance for the surgery to go ahead.
Employed by the ministry, his on-call allowance isn’t measly in comparison to many of his hospital colleagues’.
Still, at an extra U.S. $40 a month it’s not even enough to buy a sack of rice in Zwedru. He told me: “I practice medicine because of my people. Yes, you need money to live, but a life comes first.”
With Mr. Desuah and the new surgeon in the emergency room, the Caesarean goes well. Around an hour later, we find out mother and baby is fine.
By now it’s 1:30 a.m. The whole episode has taken just an hour and a half but we’re wrung out. I watch as Penny trundles sleepily, but satisfied, back to bed, radio as ever in hand.
My mind turns to Dr. Amagashie and Mr. Desuah; they must be exhausted yet this is their life, day in, day out.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Friends and fellow Grand Gedeans,
It is stories like these that make me want to work for my people. We are a people on a sojourn that doesn’t need to forget our roots and how we got here. When I read this article I was in tears and my grief compounded especially knowing who Mr. Dehsuah is and how he helped me personally in Zwedru. For me this is a personal fight for health care and education for all Grand Gedehians in spite of clan or district.
It is stories like these and many more that we cannot post; that have led us to embark on the various projects we intend to undertake as Grand Gedehians residing in the State of Minnesota. One of those projects is sponsoring of a couple of doctors like Mr. Dehsuah who makes only $40 monthly and cannot afford to feed his family but yet and still is in Zwedru doing all he can to save lives.
My fellow Grand Gedehians, politics, bureaucracy and backbiting will not feed, educate or heal our people. We need to come together and do the noble thing by making our presence felt.
From building of a public library in Zwedru to be dubbed “The Minnesota-Grand Gedehians Library to paying of doctors and teacher’s salary are my administration’s priority. Why it is true that I can’t do this alone, I am humbly calling on all of you to please support this humanitarian and brotherly cause. Details of this project will be made public after my visit to Zwedru, Liberia.
If we are truly and faithfully a people united for excellence, we will avoid politics in our organization and foster that peace that will eventually show us the light at the end of this tunnel.
Thank you again and may God bless Grand Gedeh and its people.
Mr. Alex Barmon
President-MN Chapter
