The Government of Liberia has commissioned a modern health center in Bo-Waterside in Grand Cape Mount.
The health facility contains Ante Natal Care/Post Natal Care/EPI Department; Out-Patient Department; utilities laboratory; operating theater; consultation rooms; emergency room; pediatric, male and female wards; isolation and short-stay wards; pharmacy staff quarters (2-bedroom duplex)’ water tower and a generator house.
The construction of the health center was funded by West African Health Organization (WAHO) in the amount of approximately US$ 440,000 and the Liberian Ministry of Health procurement unit then ensured the on-ground procurement of workers while the procurement unit at WAHO supervised the project.
Participating in the commissioning program, the Director General of the WAHO), Professor Stanley Okolo reiterated his organization’s readiness in continuing its exemplary collaboration with Liberia’s Ministry of Health.
Representing Jean Claude Kasi BROU, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, the WAHO Director General noted that in support of the people of Liberia through its Ministry of Health, WAHO provided both the technical and financial support including the provision for the construction of the Bo-Waterside facility and necessary training of healthcare workers.
In addition Prof. Okolo said during the Covid-19 pandemic, WAHO helped procure diagnostics, medical equipment and PPEs which were first delivered in August of 2020, with another batch expected soon.
He assured the Liberian President that WAHO is committed to continuing this level of support and more to the citizens of Liberia through the Ministry of Health noting that the continuous strengthening of the health system is as a result of primarily benefitting the people of Liberia and by proximity, the people of Sierra Leone.
Commenting further on the construction of the Bo-Waterside facility, Prof. Okolo who has been heading WAHO since March 2018 said, it started in 2017 as a result of lessons learned from the 2014 to 2016 Ebola Virus outbreak in West Africa.
Continuing, he said after his first visit in 2018, he was even more determined to see this project come to fruition, pointing out that the Friday, March 26, 2021 commissioning ceremony comes at a moment where there are vital importance of effective surveillance and response strategies.
Prof. Okolo, who is also an obstetrician and gynecologist explained that
The WAHO DG further said the choice of location of the facility was strategically placed at the border of Liberia and Sierra Leone to improve cross-border surveillance and ensure that citizens from Sierra Leone would also benefit from services offered at the Health Center.
The Director General of the West African Health Organization, was keen on how the facility will be sustained as the next step and said, as part of lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic, some member States closed their borders early when WHO declared the virus a pandemic and that the closure of borders led to the economic depression and extreme suffering of some West African citizens.
Prof. Okolo said as they prepare for the next pandemic and will work towards mitigating such occurrences by ensuring that they have sufficient surveillance mechanisms at reduced border points and up to standard infrastructures such as isolation facilities, so that they need not close the borders again.
President George Manneh Weah thanked the West African Health Organization on behalf of the government and people of Liberia for what he described as a milestone gesture.
According to President Weah, the BO-Watersider Health Center is the fruit of the longstanding cooperation that has existed between Liberia and WAHO.
He further noted the particular significance of the facility to both Liberia and Sierra Leone and extended his best regards to the Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Sidie Mohamed Tunis.