Ajuah Eshun could barely walk when she was admitted to J.J. Dossen Hospital in Harper, Liberia. She had been suffering from a large, painful ulcer on her leg. Routine tests also revealed that she was diabetic, so Merlin’s doctor Alex Bolo ensured she was given the appropriate treatment immediately. Within days, Ajuah was able to walk around the ward with relative ease and beamed with joy when she was told she would soon be discharged.
Patients like Ajuah are now fortunate to be able to get medical treatment, including emergency surgery, at any time of day, seven days a week, at J.J. Dossen. The hospital has been completely transformed over the past year. When Merlin first arrived in Harper in response to a cholera epidemic in 2004, the hospital was barely functioning, with chronic shortages of staff, medical supplies and equipment. Like most health facilities in Liberia, J.J. Dossen was stripped bare by looters during the country’s 14-year civil war. The hospital was forced to close for three years and only had the capacity to run an outpatients department after the war ended in 2003.
Midwife Elizabeth Toe described how she and her colleagues struggled to cope, with no instruments for deliveries and no mattresses for the beds. “We just had to put patients on rusty iron bedsteads. If we had a complicated pregnancy, we would have to transfer the patient to Monrovia by helicopter, but many patients died on the way,” she added.
Merlin’s team successfully contained the cholera outbreak by setting up a specialist treatment ward and chlorinating wells to ensure that the community had clean water. But there was clearly an urgent need to refurbish the entire hospital and to restore all services. With funding from the UK government, Merlin began the enormous task of renovating all the buildings, bringing in new equipment and medical supplies, and recruiting more staff.
The hospital was officially re-opened in January 2006, and is now providing free health care for nearly a quarter of a million people. Merlin is still supporting the hospital, by providing equipment and medical supplies, and training and supervising staff.
J.J. Dossen Hospital is one of 30 health facilities currently supported by Merlin in Liberia.