PIH Celebrates 10 Years of Free Healthcare Delivery -Discloses Major Achievements, Vowing Not to Leave Liberia

By Henry N. Kolenky

MONROVIA – Liberia Partners in Health (PIH) is expected to celebrate its ten years of service to unfortunate Liberians on the 18th of October and poised to provide a free donation of blood at the Martha Tubman Sports Stadium in Harper.

The first day of the celebration, a spokesman of the group said, will continue with both soccer and kick ball matches between Tubman University and his institution Partners in Health.

Partners in Health is a nongovernmental Global Health Research, and social justice organization based in the United States of America, working closely with the Ministry of Health and the Maryland County Health Team, on a mission to provide preferential options for the poor in health care ensuring modern medical science benefit for those most in need and acting as antidotes to disperse.

Speaking in an interview on Tuesday morning, the communication director of the group, Sam Zota, disclosed that the dream of Partners In Health started in the 80s by the late doctor Paul Farmer and some of his colleagues in the United States to form Partners In Health and they went to Hatti to response to emergency situation.

It can be recalled, in 2014 when the Ebola virus was ravaging Liberia, former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf reached out to other partners including Paul Farmer, a request amplified not only by PIH but was the organizations way to help the country, thus joining other organizations that year.

“We did the work as our mission provides that we provide preferential health care to the poor in healthcare,” Zota said. “So, our work doesn’t require us sitting in urban area but our mission is to go in the rural area for those who are mostly in need and dignify health care services.”

The continued: “When you talk about access to services in Liberia, the region that we definitely talk about that cut off most of the time will be the Southeastern region of Liberia, and Maryland being the last county in the country, traveling by road to provide dignified health services means a lot.

He also spoke of days when there was no treatment available at the JJ Dossen Hospital when a lot of sick people were transferred to Tapita and others were dying alone the way as a result of the road condition.

He further disclosed that the Pleebo Health Center used to be a three-bed room apartment but has been transformed into a modern health facility drawing patients from Ivory Coast and other southeastern counties.

He said PIH community health workers are always in the field making sure that all patients are taking their treatment in accordance with the plan, something that makes PIH different and separated from other health organizations Zota explained.

Also speaking during the Ok, FM morning rush talk show held at the Partners In Health Office in Maryland County, Dr. Sara Yango Morris, deputy director of clinical health services and Maternal health lead at Partners In Health PIH Liberia, disclosed that as their mission provides that preferential options for the poor most needy, most of the eighty percent of the population in Maryland county are underprivileged people.

According Doctor Morris, Partners In Health is going to ensure that Maryland County has a better health facility to which everyone wanting to seek healthcare will troop into.

Doctor Morris also disclosed that PIH has specialists assigned in Maryland County at the JJ Dossen Hospital and Partners In Health also have other Liberians who are away for specialization training will come in the future to take over the system that has been built.

According to the Doctor Sarah Morris, the organization is developing the capacity of Liberians both locally and internationally.

She said PIH has been performing major surgeries successfully at James Jenkins Hospital since her inception in providing free health services. According to her PIH services are hundred percent free.

According to Partners In Health Safeguarding Manager Madam Celestine Brown, despite of PIH residing in Maryland county, it is also serving most parts of the southeastern region.

She maintained that they also join their partners and the community to orientate them on how to report cases like abuses that happened to them.

Brown also narrated that Partners In Health is also aware that patients are to be dignified as they carry out the healthcare services.

Partners In Health presence in Maryland County, she said, has seen significant improvement in the reduction of critical care, maternal death, neonatal death, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, pressure, stroke and hypotension including reduction in tuberculosis conditions among others.