Amy Waddell is Merlin's Communications Intern. Having spent six months working with the team at headquarters in London, she's now based in Zwedru, Liberia until September and blogging her experiences from the field.
At midnight an ambulance arrives at Zwedru’s Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital in remote Grand Gedeh County. It brings a woman who has gone into labor, needing a Caesarean section to save her and her unborn child.
Minutes later, staff in the hospital emergency room radio Penny, Merlin’s Project Coordinator. They tell her there’s no surgeon to perform the operation - there’s no public health surgeon in the entire county, let alone Zwedru town.
You can help save lives now: Please make an online donation
It’s at this point, with crackling radio in hand, that Penny wanders into our front room where I’m sitting.
Penny calls Wellington Dweh, the hospital Administrator - also just woken by an emergency room call. He knows of a new surgeon who’s working with a local NGO and is on his motorbike within minutes, making his way across town to wake the surgeon to see if he will help.
Penny and I wait anxiously, willing the radio to crackle with an update.
Usually Dr. Amegashie would step into the breach. He’s the on-call surgeon and the hospital’s only doctor. He’s also acting medical director, as well as the only eye specialist for the six counties of the South East Region. Not one of these roles is his official job: Dr. Amegashie is in fact the County Health Officer (CHO). This week he is in the capital, Monrovia, attending meetings with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, fulfilling his CHO responsibilities.
With Dr Amagashie away, Penny starts running through alternatives if the newly-arrived surgeon cannot perform the Caesarean. There is only one: the mother will have to go to Ganta, a five hour drive away.
"She will die," Penny says, looking at me desperately. "She’s already traveled for more than two hours on bumpy roads – by the time these cases reach us they are so urgent."
The radio crackles into life; it’s Wellington, asking permission for a Merlin vehicle to collect the surgeon and take him to the hospital. Penny sighs, relieved, and can’t speak her approval into the hand-held radio quick enough.
Minutes later we hear the Merlin driver affectionately report that he’s reached the Old Man’s House – he’s talking about Mr Desuah. Mr. Desuah is 66 years old. He’s Grand Gedeh’s only Anesthetist and will have to be in attendance for the surgery to go ahead.
His on-call allowance is an extra US$40 a month, half the monthly salary of a cleaner. He told me: "I practice medicine because of my people. Yes, you need money to live, but a life comes first."
With Mr Desuah and the new surgeon in the emergency room, the Caesarean goes well. An hour later, we find out mother and baby are doing fine.
By now it’s 1:30 in the morning. The whole episode’s taken just an hour and a half but we’re wrung out. I watch as Penny trundles sleepily, but satisfied, back to bed, radio as ever in hand. My mind turns to Dr. Amegashie and Mr. Desuah; they must be exhausted yet this is their life, day in, day out.
Read Amy's first field diary entry
Find out more about our work in Liberia