Liberia health system on brink of collapse as crisis worsens

The healthcare system in Liberia is collapsing, hospitals closing down and medical workers fleeing from the ebola epidemic Liberia’s foreign minister said on Thursday.

“People are dying from common diseases because the healthcare system is collapsing,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan said in an interview with Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It is going to have a long-term impact, even after this crisis is behind us.”

Treatable diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea are left untended because frightened Liberians are shunning medical centres, and these deaths could outstrip those from the ebola virus by three or four fold, he said.

But his biggest concern is the spreading epidemic.

“We are hearing it is going to get worse before it gets better. We do not know how much worse that will be. My main worry is the fear of how many people will die. Right now it is out of control,” Ngafuan said.

The number of trained doctors and nurses, already in critical short supply after years of civil war, is shrinking as medical workers get infected, quarantined or are afraid to report to work. The country entered the epidemic with only about 50 doctors for four million people.

“What is happening is the entire health sector is being devastated by the crisis. It is not only a killer, but it kills those who care for them,” Ngafuan said.

The three West African countries most affected by the ebola virus — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — stressed at a meeting with US government officials, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Bank, that a global response is critical, Ngafuan said.

Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Samura Kamara, in a separate interview in Washington, delivered a similar message.

“This is a disease that is beyond the capacity of the three national governments. We need greater international awareness and support and it should be considered a global health crisis that needs a global response,” he said.

Both ministers said they were satisfied with the US response. They have requested emergency assistance to contain the disease, logistical help, laboratories, additional health workers, and help with prevention and education programs.

USAID, the international aid agency, pledged an additional $5m and sent in an emergency team and the World Bank $200m in emergency funding to fight the disease, which has claimed 932 lives and spread to Nigeria.