Health Care in Liberia Today: fake doctors, counterfeit drugs, and no alternative for patients
Taken from an article by Nyankor Matthew "The Perspective" Atlanta, GA 2/7/07
Fourteen years of civil war left Liberia in ruins and devastated its infrastructure. This brutal war displaced thousands of Liberians from their homes, crippled social services, and destabilized the health care system. During this time majority of our hospital facilities were either destroyed or looted, thus leading to a critical shortage of trained and qualified health professionals who were forced to flee to other countries. Though things have improved somewhat since the election of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the war's legacy is evident in the capital, Monrovia, and in villages across the nation. As Liberia emerges from the ashes of war, this legacy is still very visible, and currently affects every aspect of the average Liberian person's life, especially those who lack the financial resources.
In Liberia, little attention is being paid to the influx of so called foreign doctors practicing medicine. Not every white or white looking man or woman who presents a degree and wears a white coat and seems to know what he or she is talking about is a real doctor.
Complaints of misdiagnosis, misconduct, failures by physicians to examine charts, the dispensing of medications deadly to those suffering from particular health conditions, pharmacy personnel dispensing the wrong prescriptions to patients are all too common in Liberia. I have been told stories of "doctors" refusing to see patients when immediate care was needed in life-threatening circumstances, and even stories of patients waiting for hours before anyone would respond. Often the response was to simply send them home. In some cases, just a few hours later they would have to return for emergency care.
Although reliable data is limited, international health care organizations have estimated that in Africa as a whole, 25 to 50 percent of the pharmaceutical market is counterfeit, with the worst-hit country being Nigeria, which accounts for 50 percent of the total sales of fake drugs.
Fourteen years of war, inadequate legislation and failure to enforce regulations are the major contributing factors to poor quality medical service, and existing laws do not ensure that private and public medical services maintain even minimum standards, enforcing laws relating to registration and licensing of medical practitioners. Our health care system is seriously under-funded, medical facilities are poorly maintained and medical professionals receive little updated training. For the average Liberian, adequate health care service is nearly non -existent and for rural Liberians the problem is even worse. Under-trained nurses, lack of basic medicines, unhygienic surgeries, and un-sterilized injections with non- working doctors, nurses and health workers, are all too normal for our people. The rural areas are suffering the most from this health care crisis. Many rural clinics are often crowded with people but have few staff to attend to these patients.
The ministry of Health needs to be on the offensive before it's too late. It needs to take drastic steps to stop or curb unethical medical practices in Liberia, and I think the best way forward is for people to become more aware and start questioning the care they receive. The Ministry of Health and legitimate medical doctors should start a campaign at health centers, clinics, and hospitals, to educate and make people more aware about the dangers of counterfeit drugs, and fake doctors.
