Training of Health Care Professionals Needed
Our Plan:
To enhance the well being of all Liberians through available health care for all, Mission to Liberia will supply the medical and pharmaceutical schools of Liberia with current educational materials, tools and supplies. Once completed our outreach center outside of Monrovia will be available to Liberians as a teaching/training facility.
Mission To Liberia is committed to providing sustainable solutions for the health care delivery system in Liberia. Years of civil conflict have taken a huge toll on infrastructure. Liberia is in the second year of a "Five Year Plan" developed in conjunction with World Health Organization. Our representatives met with the Ministry of Health to ascertain the most effective way we could help Liberia to solve some of their most pressing problems. After discussions with high level Government officials, we concluded that our efforts should be concentrated towards improving the number and quality of health care professionals within Liberia. Currently, Liberia has less than two hundred doctors for a population of over 3.5 million people... and only 24 Pharmacists. Maternal and child mortality are among the highest in the world.
Facilities are in ruin and virtually everything was either stolen or destroyed. The University of Liberia's School of Pharmacy and General Medicine is no exception.
During our visit to the University in August 2008, we found deplorable conditions under which students and teachers were working. We toured the building with Dean of the School of Pharmacy and the Dean of the School of General Medicine.
The classrooms are bare... only desks and a blackboard. Students and teachers are working without any of the basics one would expect in a University setting. There are no textbooks, no computers, no lab equipment. My visit to one of the "labs" found that the university lacks even basic items such as test tubes, beakers, microscopes, etc.
We intend to address this problem by sending the vital tools needed to equip and train students dedicated to making their contributions towards better health care for all. Our goal is to send a container to Liberia full of the items they lack... a "University in a Box".
We also plan to work with colleges and universities in the United States to provide educational opportunities for Liberian students and teachers. Those opportunities include student/teacher exchanges, on line workshops, curriculum support, etc.
We can only accomplish this through the generosity of individuals and corporations who share our vision of providing basic health care as a right for all people.
