Greetings from Liberia as we are in the dry season now so it is hot here and in the political season as major elections will take place in October of this year. 

Way back in May 2021 at our Surgical Care System Needs in Liberia workshop, we learned of the great need in the areas of leadership, biomedical, anesthesia, and supply chain.  So, we have endeavored to help the Liberian healthcare system in three of the areas (only not able to help with the supply chain).

In my last update, I mentioned how Mercy Ships is donating new anesthesia equipment that has been engineered for environments as we find in Liberia with on and off electricity which you can’t time or anticipate.  The electricity (here we say ‘current’) may go off in the middle of a surgery and unsure if it will turn back on or if the backup system at the hospital will work.  This new anesthesia equipment has a battery backup and can continue with all features for 30 minutes and even longer with just ventilation and no oxygen concentrator use.  In your role/position, you have the training but if you don’t have the equipment to do your role, it is limiting and frustrating and that is the case with some of the anesthesia providers in Liberia.      

We never want to donate medical equipment without the user’s training on that particular machine.  Those using the anesthesia equipment are nurse anesthetists.  For the user training, I decided I would travel with the trainer from Diamedica, the manufacturer in the United Kingdom.  I learned that Jon has been to almost 30 countries but this is his first time in Liberia.  He is a designer, engineer, and trainer on their equipment.  By traveling with him, I was able to connect with hospital leadership who I have known since the workshop but have not been able to visit in their hospitals in the interior.  Due to the road conditions and the amount of time it would take to get to the hospitals, for two hospitals, we used Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) – less than a two-hour flight from the capital.  Amazing to see the country with the dense forests and rivers from the air at about 8,000 feet.   

Fifty-six Liberian healthcare workers serving in hospitals where Mercy Ships donated the Diamedica Glostavent Anesthesia Systems and Patient Monitors with CO2 received in-person excellent user training by the manufacturer’s designer/engineer/trainer.  The equipment donation and the user training are steps towards better anesthesia and safer surgery in Liberia.  I am currently working on another donation of eight anesthesia systems.   

This last Sunday, I joined one of my former patients at his church, still within Monrovia, but a bit more isolated in its location.  I had shared briefly at the church previously and this time the pastor gave me the same opportunity.  Though instead of the news about the ship coming and how they could help us find potential surgical patients from the villages, I shared the sad news that the ship is not coming to Liberia.  I didn’t give many details but shared what we have been doing and what we have planned for the next few months.  I reminded them and myself about how our lives and our futures are in the hands of God. 

The church has two choirs – one choir is ladies, and they sing in the Kissi language and I just clap if I can stay on the beat as I don’t understand anything.  The young people’s choir sings in English and the song they had prepared – the chorus goes like this ‘No matter what comes my way, my life is in Your hands’.  Almost exactly the same as the encouragement I shared with them ten minutes early. 

I love how God is like that. 

Serving together, Kofa Keith  (at this church, I go by ‘Sahr‘ – firstborn son of my mother and father.