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Liberia: Six Clinics Risk Closure
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The Analyst (Monrovia)
19 March 2008
Posted to the web 19 March 2008
Reports emanating from Grand Bassa County say about six public health centers actively involved in the county's health delivery system risk closure due to lack of supports from central government.
Grand Bassa County Junior Senator, Nathaniel Innis told our Legislative reporter yesterday that the County Health Officer, Dr. Jerry F. Brown has written authorities of the Ministry of Health expressing the plight of the clinics and called for urgent attention to avoid the clinics being closed down.
Among other things, our reporter quoted Senator Innis as indicating that workers of the six clinics have not been paid for months and that NGOs have withdrawn their supports owing to the fact that they are on verge of closing down.
The clinics concerned, according to the Bassa lawmaker are Jacob Larteh Public Health Center, Sue Town Clinic, Barseegiah Clinic, Senyan Town Clinic, Boeglay Town Clinic and the Edina Public Health center.
He said the closure of these clinics which is largely due to the 'no money' syndrome has the propensity to undermine the health care delivery system, and also endangers the lives of the people. He told our reporter that he recently visited some of the communities in which the clinics are, and gathered that situation is serious.
During the 2007/2008 Fiscal Year Budget, Senator Innis said he told his colleagues that the amount allocated for the health care delivery system for the counties was insufficient. "What I was afraid of has happened and my people are about to suffer because there is no money to operate some of our clinics, "he said.
Sen. Innis called on the authorities of the Health Ministry to consider keeping the clinics functional by providing funds. In a related development, the lawmaker has decried the continuous increment of the prices of basic commodities, especially rice and petroleum products on the Liberian market.
He observed that the ordinary people are suffering the hikes in prices of these commodities while those in government do not care because they can afford to buy at whatever prices.
"This prices of our nation's staple food continues to triple in rural Liberia," he said making specific reference to Bassa and Rivercess , Sinoe Counties where he said rice is sold between LD$2,000 to LD$2500.
"This is a crucial issue that government needs to address to alleviate the suffering of the vast majority. He recommended to the executive through the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to allow the K&K and Bridgeway to once more join the rice market in other to stabilize the prices of the nation's stable food and to make it affordable to the ordinary people.
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He also recommended that there is a need for the government to see reasons to open the rice market, and break the monopoly that Fouta Corporation was enjoying, something he said was responsible for the sky rocketing of the price of rice on the market.
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| Copyright © 2008 The Analyst. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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