A snapshot from Liberia
Sightsavers' Dominic Haslam visited Liberia and explains what Sightsavers has achieved, and what are our main challenges working there.
Day 1: Flying to Liberia
Airline liquid security measures note: Don’t buy liquids on the first stage of a transit journey, as you can’t get on the second plane with anything you’ve bought in the first airport... There must now be a bottled water lake somewhere in Europe with enough supplies to irrigate Arizona!
Other than that, uneventful flight and transfer to hotel.
Day 2: Problematic transport
Transport issues became pretty clear straight away. I was lucky enough to get seats on the free UNMIL (United Nations Mission in Liberia) personnel transport plane*. It was a good way to get an aerial view of the situation – dirt roads, rivers and dense forest all the way to Zwedru and again to Harper. Harper itself contrasted a beautiful spit of beach, trapping a salt water lagoon, with a dense town spreading out behind it, broken up by dusty red roads.
To make sure we had transport in Harper, George Forpoh (Programme Officer) and Anthony (Driver) set off early on Friday to drive the office 4x4 down to Harper. They got stuck several times and the vehicle gave out – they didn’t reach Harper until after 3am on the Saturday morning.
Visiting Harper City
Harper city itself is a mix of NGO and government compounds surrounded by barbed wire and collections of windowless concrete buildings, some with improvised roofing and families inside, some with vegetation slowly reclaiming space. Around these, rows of tin-roof shacks form the bulk of housing.
Its not that these are uncommon in African towns, it’s more that here they are the town. There are few new buildings at all, a testament to the poverty of the region and the recent conflict. Perhaps the most poignant building is ex-President Tubman’s house, obviously once grand and still spacious, now boarded up, dilapidated and providing living space for several families.
The JJ Dossen Hospital
Our first meeting was at the JJ Dossen Hospital, site of the Sightsavers-supported eye unit and one of the focal points of the planned growth of the South East Regional Eye Care project. I’m glad to say that as a Ministry of Health and Social Welfare building this looked far more accessible, with none of the barbed wire that graced other compounds.
We met John Cooper, the ophthalmic nurse who has kept the programme in the South East going either on his own or with Dr Amegashie, the ophthalmologist now based in Zwedru, even during the end of the second civil war. We were shown round the current eye unit offices and the site of planned construction.
The eye unit is currently in two parts and is clearly not fully integrated into the hospital. In the main eye unit, each room is small and is storing supplies and equipment that are supposed to be held in the main storage/supply areas of the hospital. John’s office is particularly cramped, filled with boxes of lenses and other materials supplied by Sightsavers. There is just about space for the slit lamp, his desk and a small fan. The examination room is similarly small. Frustratingly there is some equipment in the hospital, but it can’t currently be used by the eye unit as there’s no space to set it up.
We then had a look at the operating theatre, which again is basic and in the same building as the main hospital theatres. The room was stuffy, dark and in need of re-painting (a permanent problem, particularly in the rainy season). John told us that the air conditioning had recently been fixed, but operating in the room when it was out of action had been really hard going.
Proposed eye unit
Finally, we had a look round the proposed eye unit planned as a part of the one year project. It used to be a private ward and is seriously run down, with more trees than flooring, no roof, windows or doors and would be best described as a series of walls. Nevertheless, the structure is sound and it’s due to be rehabilitated into an examination room, office, ward and theatre.
*Since the time of writing, UNMIL has cancelled support to all NGOs travelling in their helicopter. This is to help support the private sector’s economic recovery, as there is now a commercial airline flying the area.
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