No Drugs, No Light!

-Phebe Hospital Nears Decline

By Esau J. Farr

Fresh report from Suacoco, Bong County says the status of health care service delivery at the Phebe Hospital has now slipped from bad to worst and even beyond.

According to the report, the hospital currently lacks fuel to run the generator of the hospital that provides electricity for the smooth running of the hospital.

It is reported that due to the lack of fuel to provide electricity for the running of the hospital, nurses and doctors at the hospital are constrained to use flashlights and their mobile phones to produce electricity to examine and treat patients especially at night.

Media outlets have quoted authorities of the hospital as telling journalists that if nothing is done to put the situation under control, the hospital risks being shut down soon something that will be disastrous for citizens of that part of Liberia since Phebe serves as a major regional referral hospital in central Liberia.

The hospital also treats patients coming from Guniea and has a history of catering for citizens of Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast and other West African nations prior to the senseless civil conflicts in Liberia that lasted more than a decade and reportedly claimed the lives of over two hundred and fifty thousand (250,000) lives displaying thousand others.

Less than two months ago, this paper (New Republic) did an investigative report of the hospital covering its general operations that included trained health practitioners, logistics, medical supplies and needed equipment as well as available essential drugs to cater for the influx of patients at the centrally located hospital.

During the investigative tour guided by the Medical Director of the Phebe Hospital and Nursing School, it was discovered that there were improvement in the human resource capacities of practitioners of the hospital, available modern hospital equipment, functional optical (Eye Clinic) unit and a newly constructed CD Scan Unit amongst other important developments that have taken place over the last few years.

Health care delivery service remains one of the major challenges confronting underdeveloped countries of which Liberia is no exception as well as a global fight which failed at the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015 which was few years ago placed amongst the seventeen pillars of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. TNR