PHOTO: PIIFF containers held at Freeport of Monrovia
By Wremongar Joe, wremongarjoe@gmail.com
With memories of the Ebola outbreak at the back of Liberians’ minds given the deaths of more than 4,000 people and devastated health care delivery, Liberia’s is being plagued by a third wave of the Coronavirus and a new variant which is said to be more deadly, with a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Patients are being turned away from the nation’s most recognized hospitals due to the lack of ventilators, oxygen and hospital beds while the country records dozens of new coronavirus cases each day.
At some hospitals, nurses cannot be found to treat sick people either dues to lack of medical supplies or for fear of their lives.
In the face of this lack of supplies at hospitals, the Prince Ibrahima and Isabella Freedom Foundation (PIIFF), a US-based Liberian Charity has nearly USD$5 million worth of relief medical supplies that could save lives stuck at Freeport of Monrovia.
The supplies held at the Freeport of Monrovia delayed storage fees are basically medical, emergency, fire, transportation, and other logistical equipment: stretchers, oxygen tanks, masks, and fire suits, cutting tools for major accidents, defibrillators, ventilators, beds, PPES, tractors, vehicles, watercrafts, and a 130kva generator amongst others.
They were given the Prince Ibrahima and Isabella Freedom Foundation (PIIFF) by the US city of Chicago.
The got thru LRA delayed the exemption process of the relief for over 45 days and when all the signature were ready, it cost Prince Ibrahim and Isabella Freedom Foundation so much in storage and demurrage from both APM and the shipping line, which made it impossible to clear on time.
Some of the PPE’s at the Freeport of Monrovia awaiting clearance
PIIFF said to date, the government to whom it regularly donates these items, especially the Liberia National Fire Service has done nothing to foot or help settle the storage.
“We paid USD$24k to clear two containers and we realized it didn’t make sense for us to pay such amount anymore while we donate these things to the very government demanding us to make such payment,” said Dr. Artemus Gaye, the head of the US-based Liberian charity.
Dr. Gaye said he had earlier paid for storage in the USA costing $55 thousand and an extra $USD16k when the trailers with these very equipment on board were towed by the city of Chicago.
To avoid embarrassment, immediately rallied resources to ship 9 containers to Liberia while raising at the coast of $USD60thousand for the shipment.
In rather frustrated tone the head of PIIFF disclosed it has been decided that the remaining two containers containing these essential medical supplies go into auction and then “we can pay for them to avoid the high storage and other charges”.
Hospital beds and stretchers
More of the items at the Freeport of Monrovia
It can be recalled that in July 2020, US government offered to fly or ship the medical and relief items to Liberia for free but requested a landing right or waiver from the Liberian government which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs failed to respond to.
According to the charity, it anticipated this crisis almost immediately when the COVID crisis struck after its assessment of Liberia’s fragile health and social sectors.
Said Dr. Gaye: “This prompted two trips in 2019 and 2020 to engage the Liberian government to see reason in building private-public relationship with Liberian run charities in the diaspora with long record of achievements”.
Dr. Gaye expressed optimism about fate of the items but said the challenge now remains getting the items from the port and getting them to serve the people with a goal of establishing an emergency and disaster training institute near the Roberts-field and build substations in every district in Liberia political sub divisions so that people have access to these equipment.
PIIFF from it foundation was involved in Liberia’s first healthcare grant (malaria, TB, HIV) under the EJS led administration when a high power delegation from Illinois, helped secured a USD $40 million from the World Health Organization.
Similar gesture was done to recruit 40 nursing students to Chicago but due to poor coordination from the Ministry of Health, the program was shelved.
Before the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, the state of Illinois invited the Liberian health authorities to articulate their needs and what the state could do to bolster Liberia’s fragile healthcare system, the delegation travelled to the USA but failed to show up at the major conference held by the hosts in Illinois at Northwestern University, that’s according to Dr. Artemus Gaye, who was then a co-host to the Liberian delegation.
Sadly, four month later, Ebola hit Liberia, killed more than 4000 citizens and devastated the country’s already poor health sector.