Perry Moore received a riveting on-the-ground report from Liberia about the Ebola crisis and its impact on life in this struggling country. Moses Paye is the President of the Evangelical Churches of Liberia (ECOL) made up of about 100 churches, many planted by ELWA. Sorry I havent been able to communicate due to the national emergency here. Its a very difficult situation here. 14 of the 15 political sub-divisions of Liberia have reported cases of Ebola. Even though the official number of deaths is 1089 in Liberia, we believe the number is far greater considering the fact that many other parts of the country are out of mobile phone coverage area or inaccessible by road especially during this wet season. The few Ebola isolation units here have begun turning away suspected cases due to over-crowded facilities. MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders] reported yesterday that it has begun turning away suspected cases as of yesterday because their facilities are now over-crowded. WHO also reported the shortage of medical doctors in the country and gave a ratio of 1 doctor to every 100,000 people. Trauma related illnesses are causing the deaths of equal number of people who have died of Ebola. What is more disturbing is that 98% of all medical centers here are either closed or operating on a very low scale. This is due to the deaths of many health workers which has left other health workers to be too traumatized to work or want government to provide them protective gears. ELWA is operating on a very low scale (skeleton team) apart from the Ebola isolation unit there. They currently have the midwifery station open (with 8 normal delivery and 4 CS cases), and one surgical case (13 years old girl - bio-obstruction). Up to early last month there were only 2 ambulances available for emergency in Monrovia and its environs (1.3 million people). Bodies were often left uncollected for more than 4 days which led families or communities to bury their dead and the result was an exponential increase in the number of infected cases. Also, the refusal of Muslims to suspend/stop their traditional burial rites, the great anxiety and confusion which led people to keep moving from place to place in search of safety, high illiteracy rate, denials, governments initial poor handling of the outbreak are all possible causes for the rapid spread. We put our trust in God to intervene. The outbreak has disrupted ECOLs ministry activities. All planned trainings have been canceled and our annual national convention as well.With most places of work closed (especially when we already had an 85% unemployment) and farming disrupted by the outbreak, ECOL members churches are facing a difficult time here. We also have no way of hearing from 60% of our churches that are outside of phone coverage area. Some of them are in the quarantine regions and it is possible that there might be Ebola or trauma-related deaths. People are dying in their homes of other treatable illnesses because no one can help them due to the Ebola scare. Ambulances have been increased to 6 but they dont usually come until after 2 to 3 days. We all know that it will get a lot worse than this before it begins to get better. We covet your prayers.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 22:00:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015