PHOTO: Dr. John Yarkpawolo
– 100,000 Residents to one Medical Doctor
By Edwin M. Fayia, III, fayiaedwin@gmail.com
The 2008 Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo Information Service population (LISGIS) census report put the ratio of number of people to a doctor at 100,000 to one medical doctor to perform all surgical operations.
Coping with the situation is becoming very hectic and tiresome, the Medical Director of the privately owned Foya Borma Hospital Dr. John Yarkpawolo said.
Dr. Yarkpawolo, who is also a product of the A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine at the University of Liberia, further said that caseloads they contend with are not only within the country’s territorial confines, but from as far as Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The situation, he said, has further complicated their task and made it overwhelming especially considering the cases from Mano River Union countries.
Dr. Yarkpawolo also pointed out that patients from Sierra Leone come mainly from the eastern town of Kailahun while those from Guinea, from the forest region which has a huge population of women with multiple surgical challenges.
At the moment, he intoned, “I’m not assigned a vehicle though doctors assigned in other parts of our country that are very hard to reach like Foya, are provided vehicles” Dr. Yarkpawolo lamented.
“While I’m making the ultimate sacrifice to serve our people, my needs should be considered paramount” Dr. Yarkpawolo pleaded.
He also stressed the need for an assigned vehicle and drugs in order to ensure efficiency at the health center.
Dr. Yarkpawolo has at the same time to assign additional two additional medical doctors considering the internal and external caseloads the hospital is confronted with.
“I continue to work under such hard conditions because I love and cherish my profession which is principally to serve humanity; especially rural Liberians that are always in dire need of medical services,” Dr. Yarkpawolo asserted.
Since July 2019 in Foya Statutory District in Lofa County, the 2008 Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo Information Service population (LISGIS) census report revealed that one hundred thousand residents now depend on one single medical doctor to perform all surgical operations.
Foya District situated 477 miles in the North-western ark of Lofa County from Monrovia played host to one Liberia dedicated and hardworking farmers especially lowland rice production, provision of realistic medical services to them cannot be overemphasized.
Owing to hard work in the production of up and lowlands rice, in the mid-1970s won the heart and admiration of the late President William Richard Tolbert and his soil scientist agriculture Minister James T. Philips, who on several weekends flew his private air plane to Foya Airfield to buy fresh agriculture produce from farmers in the area.