Written By: Moses Geply
Zwedru, Grand Gedeh – Residents of Grand Gedeh have expressed disappointment over the management of Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital in Zwedru. The hospital is the major government run health facility in the county. Currently, the hospital is the only referral health center in the southeastern part of Liberia and it is run by the government of Liberia. Services at the hospital are free and should help people in the county to get health care.
But Speaking on a community radio stations TOP FM 105.3, in Zwedru, residents said the county only referral hospital is not discharging its duties and responsibilities to the expectations of the people.
“Really the Hospital workers at the Martha Taman Memorial Hospital are not really working in the interest of us. They are using the hospital to support their private drugstore,” said Jeff Payne, a resident of FDA Community in Zwedru.
Another resident, Cecelia Weah of New Zwedru Community added: “The government says every service at the hospital is free but the hospital staff are taking money from us; my little sister was in pain at the hospital and the doctor ask me to pay the amount of LD$4000 for delivery materials.”
They also classified some issues which provoked them to bring the Hospital Authority to public ridicule.
Some callers frown at the prescription of medicines by health workers to patients and subsequent referral to a nearby drug store or clinic, as well as the allege relocation of the Hospital’s drugs to their personal clinics and drug stores.
“I think the government needs to change all the staff at the hospital because they are not working,” asserted Toe karr of the ELRZ community. “The last time the physician gives me paper to go to a specific drug store in Janesville community to buy my son medicine which is not good for us”.
Meanwhile, the citizens said the hospital is not providing thee free services to its public but rather generating fund for their personal gains.
The Citizens at the same time use the medium to recommend to Health Authority of the County and Liberia to strengthen the Health Sector of the County in order to have a good health delivery system.
When Local Voices Liberia contacted the county Health Authority, the County Health Services Administrator, Madam Eugenia Huntington refused to be interviewed.
Madam Huntington asked to firstly consult other officials of the hospital before responding to the citizens’ views.
She however promised to engage the media in a possible time to give sufficient information on the operations of the hospital and the County Health team.
Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital was constructed by the Government of Liberia under during the administration of the late president Dr. William R. Tolbert, Jr. and was dedicated to the Ministry of Health through Grand Gedeh County Health Team in May 1976.