As a new wave of coronavirus cases threatens to overwhelm Liberia’s health system, Redemption Hospital in the capital, Monrovia, is on the front lines.
The facility, which is used to providing less complex care to New Kru Town inhabitants, has recently been forced to admit Covi-19 patients.
” It was almost like I was giving up… my breath because it started from home. When it first started, I was alone. Like I was lying down, I wanted to blow my nose and it turned out to a different thing,” said a recovering patient who did not give her name.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, Liberia has documented 3,794 illnesses and 123 coronavirus-related deaths.
So far, authorities have given out at least 82,212 doses of COVID vaccination.
According to the director of Redemption Hospital, the facility is making adjustments to provide care, but it still lacks the capacity to screen for the virus.
“Those patients that come to us and we suspect that they are presenting with signs and symptoms of Covid, we isolate them and take their specimen. Since we can’t do the testing here, send those samples to the national lab and then they give us the results. So far we have had five positive cases being admitted in our isolation,” said Dr. Williamatta Williams Gibson, the medical director.
As shortages of the critical substance begin to bite in the west African country, the hospital has begun manufacturing oxygen.
While Liberia’s health system learned during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, scientists warn that the speed and scale of the coronavirus outbreak are far worse.