Ebola-hit Liberia rebuilds devastated child healthcare system

Yahoo – AFP, Zoom Dosso, 16 April 2015

A nurse works on April 7, 2015 in Liberia's first ever a children's hospital,

 just opened in Monrovia by Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) as part of the 

country's response to the daunting challenge of repairing its wrecked health

service (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

Monrovia (AFP) - Estella Verdier keeps vigil by her sick four-month-old grandson's hospital bed, praying for his recovery but placing her faith in the earthly healing powers of Liberia's first ever children's hospital.

The 46-bed unit, just opened in Monrovia by Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), is part of the country's response to the challenge of repairing its wrecked health service as it emerges from the nightmare of Ebola.

Like countless young women in impoverished Liberia, Verdier's daughter died in childbirth, leaving the 63-year-old the infant's main guardian.

"Since then he continues to get sick. Anything he eats, he vomits it. No need to ask me how I feel -- I am feeling bad, of course -- but with this well-equipped hospital I have hope that the kid will survive," Verdier tells AFP.

Liberia is one of three countries, together with Guinea and Sierra Leone, that were ravaged by the worst outbreak of Ebola in history.

The epidemic has killed at least 10,600 people since December 2013, some 500 of them healthcare workers.

Clinics which could not cope with the highly infectious virus were forced to close as the death toll rose, and with it the number of Liberians dying from easily treatable diseases.

"We saw people dying simply because they could not access timely medical care. They were usually suffering from illnesses like severe malaria or typhoid," said Philippe Le Vaillant, MSF's head of mission in Liberia.

"Pregnant women facing obstetrical complications also have suffered the same fate."

Recovery phase

Meanwhile the vaccination rate "took a very deep dive", according to Sheldon Yett, the Liberia representative for UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency.

A woman sits next to her baby on April 7, 2015 in Liberia's first ever children's 

hospital, just opened in Monrovia by Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), part of 

the country's response to the daunting challenge of repairing its wrecked health

service (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

UNICEF's own contribution to building up paediatric healthcare includes supporting a government campaign planned for May to immunise more than 600,000 under-fives against measles and polio.

"Polio immunisation was at 88 percent in 2013 compared to 49 percent by November 2014. Measles coverage among one-year-olds fell from 74 percent to 46 percent," Yett told AFP.

Liberia is now in the Ebola recovery phase with no new cases reported for weeks, but like Sierra Leone and Guinea has missed a goal of being "Ebola free" by mid-April.

The country of four million people had been on course to meet the target but on March 20 authorities recorded a new patient who died a week later, meaning the 42-day countdown to Ebola-free status had to start again.

With its Ebola clinics now empty, Liberia's priority is curing the ailing healthcare system.

"We basically decided to come and help the medical system in the effort of restoration after Ebola hit," MSF project coordinator Ondrej Horvath told AFP.

"We were thinking how to do this (so) we sent a small team of specialists who explored Monrovia... One of the suggestions was to focus on children."

MSF began by helping clinics welcome back parents who kept their children out of clinics for fear they might become Ebola carriers.

"We decided to open an in-patient department, specialised in the hospitalisation of children, so it is not a clinic where you go in, get consultation and medication and get out," Horvath said.

'I feel ready'

The hospital was opened on March 23 in an old three-storey block of flats rented from a former cabinet minister in the northern suburb of Bardnesville.

Inside the L-shaped concrete block, MSF healthcare workers triage young patients, ensuring they do not have Ebola before admitting them for treatment for a variety of other illnesses.

Health staff care for a baby on April 7, 2015 in Liberia's first ever children's hospital, 

just opened in Monrovia by Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), part of the country's

 response to the daunting challenge of repairing its wrecked health service (AFP

Photo/Zoom Dosso)

The unit, which can extend its capacity to 100 beds, is equipped to cope with any illness other than AIDS, tuberculosis and Ebola, says MSF, known in the English-speaking world as Doctors Without Borders.

"In our hospital we treat kids with common diseases like malaria, malnutrition, pneumonia, et cetera," says paediatric specialist Stephanie Taylor.

Newborns who become ill after home births are a significant proportion of the intake, says Taylor, along with infants malnourished because of prohibitive increases in food prices caused by the Ebola crisis.

MSF has also been assisting James David Junior Memorial Hospital in Monrovia's Paynesville neighbourhood to upgrade its paediatric and maternal services to standards that now take account of Ebola.

"The virus has taught us all a lesson in the hardest way," Beatrice Jlaka, nursing supervisor in the intensive care unit at JDJ hospital, said in an interview posted on MSF's website.

"Many of our colleagues have died fighting the disease without proper training or equipment. To honour them, we must always be careful. I am no longer afraid to work. I feel ready."

Related Article:

"Revelations of Darkness" - Oct 1, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“ .. The Role of Gaia in Human Consciousness

One of those times might be frightening for you to know about, since it was a full cooperation with Gaia for your termination, and a pandemic almost wiped humanity off the map. A pandemic! Now, you say, "What has that got to do with Human consciousness, Kryon?" Pay attention, dear ones, because this is the day where the teaching was given by my partner, and he put together the Nine Human Attributes. One of the attribute sets included three Gaia attributes and one of them was the consciousness of the planet. Gaia is related to Human consciousness!

Are you starting to connect the dots? You are connected to this planet in a profound and spiritual way. As goes humanity goes the planet's consciousness. Gaia, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it, cooperates with Human consciousness. If you spend 1,000 years killing each other, then Gaia will do its best to cooperate with your desires! Gaia will look at Human consciousness and try to help with what you have shown you like to do! Did you know this role of Gaia with you? It's a partner with you, fast tracking what you give to it. You may wish to review what the indigenous of the planet still understand. Gaia is a partner!

Pandemic: Don't you find it odd that in the last 50 years, when you have a population of seven billion Human Beings, with up to 2,000 airplanes in the air at any given moment, going between almost every conceivable place, that there has not been a pandemic in your lifetime? There have been five starts of potential pandemics over the last 20 years, yet none became serious. Did any of you put this together? Dear ones, when the world was far less populated a few hundred years ago, with no mass travel to spread a virus, there were still millions wiped out by a pandemic. With the increased population and mass travel, there is far more danger today than before. It doesn't make sense, does it? What happened to stop it?

When you know humanity's relationship to Gaia, it makes sense. Gaia is a life-force that is your partner, watching you change the balance of light and dark and reflecting what Humans want. It has polarity, too! Perhaps it's time to start your meditations with thanking your planet Earth for supporting you in the spirituality of your Akash, for always being with you, a life-force that is always present. The ancients started their ceremonies in that way. Have you forgotten?

Ebola

Now, I've just set the stage for the next subject, haven't I? Ebola. Are you afraid yet? Gaia is a life-force that is a part of Human consciousness. My partner put it on the screen today so you could see the connections [during the lecture series]. Now it's time to connect the dots. Dear one, Gaia is in the battle, too, for here comes something scary that you haven't had in your lifetime and you're afraid of it - the potential of a pandemic on the planet.

There's a very famous film that has some dialogue that my partner will quote. Some of you will know it and some of you won't, but here it is: "Have a little fire, scarecrow?" What are you afraid of? Darkness? Gaia is in the battle with you and is actively pursuing solutions through light. The energy of the planet is with you in this fight! The ebola virus is a shock and a surprise. It is propelled by ignorance and fear, so it can flourish. Look at where it started and look at how it gets its ability to continue. It expands its fear and power easily with those who believe it's a curse instead of those who understand the science.

Villages are filled with those who refuse to leave their family members because they believe the disease is a curse! FEAR! Instead of understanding that they should be in isolation from the virus, the family dies together through ignorance and fear. This represents how darkness works. Are you going to become afraid also? Dear ones, ebola will be conquered. Know this and be at peace. Pray for light for those in the villages who are afraid, that they can know more about how to keep the spread of this disease and live to see their families. .”