News from The Informer (Monrovia)
Liberia: 10,000 to Benefit From New Clinic in Kokoya District
D. Kaihenneh Sengbeh
7 April 2010
The Kokoya Administrative District, Bong County, is poised to host a modern clinic that will serve at least 10,000 people for the first time in the district’s history.
Thousands of Liberians living in the district do not have any health facilities to run to during emergencies or when they get sick.
Scores of them die from common curable diseases, not to mention women who die from labor.
The district has never have a health facility and people in need of medication have to hike for at least 25 to 30 kilometer to see a nurse, physician assistant or a medical doctor.
Those who are too old or have no relative to cater to them are left to die in their homes, when they get sick or when traditional herbs fail to heal them, an elderly residents claim.
However, the malady will soon be over, bringing smiles on the faces of the people, when the Rock Crusher Clinic is built and open for service few months hence.
Being constructed at the cost of a little over US$71,000, the Clinic will contain eight rooms for screening, consulting, testing and lab, among others.
It is being built with the County Development Fund as injected in the Bong’s County Development Agenda, the County’s health program and as part of the Millennium Development Village project, officials say.
Touring the recently on a two-day visit to the county, the Deputy Coordinator of the Liberia Reconstruction Development Committee (LRDC), James Kollie, expressed delight.
Mr. Kollie described the project as a “positive step” towards meeting the health needs of the people and realizing the goals of the CDA.
As part of decentralizing development, each county, under the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf-led government has its listed development priories – the CDA, as desired by the people themselves.
Mr. Kollie and officials of the LRDC – a bureau seated in the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs responsible to monitor implementation of the PRS – initiated the tour and meetings to evaluate the impacts of the CDF on the people of Bong.
Besides, the visit which took the team to Rock Crusher was also intended to identify challenges in implementing projects under the CDF, and to get feedback from the people on what should be done in the next planning stage that will ward off most of the challenges currently being experienced.
“The construction of this clinic and the idea behind the construction of this clinic came from the County Development Fund of the Kokoya District development action plan,” Mr. Francis Kempeh, a UNDP county development consultant assigned at the Liberia’s Millennium Village project in Kokoya District, said.
“It is indeed a priority by the community…they have been cooperating with the workers and we hope that they can take ownership of it,” Kempeh, who lead the LRDC delegation to the site, disclosed.
Construction started last October and will be completed in the next couple of months.
“There is no clinic or health facility around here. People get health services about 25 to 30 kilometer away, and the construction of this clinic here will bring great relief to thousands of people,” the UNDP consultant said.
There are three administrative districts (Boinsen, Tukpahblee and Kokoya) in Kokoya Statutory District, with a population of 22, 826, according to the 2008 National Housing and Population Census.
Both Boinsen and Tukpahblee have health facilities. With the completion of the one under construction in Rock Crusher, the statutory district will have been at least served with some level of health care delivery.
The development would be registered as a score under the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) – the Government’s overall vision and major strategies for moving toward rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth and development during the period 2008-2011.
The PRS is being implemented between April 1, 2008 and June 30, 2011 at the cost of $1.61bn with four major pillars including enhancing Peace and National Security, Governance and the Rule of Law, Economic Revitalization and Rehabilitation of Infrastructures and Delivery of Basic Social Services.
Health care and delivery is under the fourth pillar: Rehabilitation of Infrastructures and Delivery of Basic Social Services. Contact: 231 6 586 531; dakasen1978@yahoo.com.
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