LairdBlog: April 2014

(By Jamie)

The last couple of weeks here have been like living out a movie or book. As some of you may know there has been a major out break of Ebola in Guinea. When we first heard the news it wasn't too big of a deal as we are quite a distance from the border with Guinea. However, it still greatly affected Samaritan's Purse as a large number of our projects are located in Foya, near the border. The cases there were people who had come across the border to seek help and I really thought it was going to remain up country because organizations like WHO and MSF were already aware of the issue. That means it should be easy to contain right? What I didn't take into consideration is the drastic lack of medical knowledge and resources here in Liberia.

Then it happened, someone sick traveled to Monrovia and on to Firestone. We (spouses and children) have been asked to evacuate. Which means separation for an unknown amount of time, uprooting my kids while we are trying to finish up our school year, and taking the little ones away from what they know. While this is a bit overwhelming, at least we can leave. We have many dear friends that cannot just go thousands of miles away from the problem. I have done my best to help my friends understand what they need to do to prevent it but it is real and it is scary.

Ministry of Health informational flyers on Ebola

Hygiene has been emphasized and re-emphasized

I am so proud of my boys for going up to the hospital to help set up an isolation unit. They sorted a large number of supplies and help to hang plastic partitions. Today Rusty and the boys helped to start the set up of a temporary triage tent so if a suspected case does come to ELWA there is a place to screen and isolate them, protecting the rest of the patients.

The boys have been helping the past couple days get an isolation ward set-up

While we don't know when or how long it will take to contain this, there are still things to be done. Rusty will be taking our five youngest to our family in Washington on Monday, and then return to Liberia. This is so I (along with Christopher) can go as planned to London on Wednesday to run the Marathon. It has become even more important and meaningful to be able to raise funds in this manner for the hospital project. There is such a huge need here and it is an honor to be able to help in this small way. Now more then ever Liberia needs a hospital that has proper equipment, well educated medical staff, and larger capacity to treat people! Please consider donating something, anything to this cause. Every dollar will make a real and lasting difference for the people of Liberia. Just click on the link at the bottom to make your donation.