Month: November 2018

I’ve been reading a couple of books relevant to the history of Liberia.  The map in a previous post shows you where it is in West Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone to the West (where we stopped on the plane on the way here) and Cote d’Ivoire to the East.  Liberia is Africa’s oldest republic and was set up at the beginning of the 19th century as a homeland for freed American slaves.  There were 2 violent, devastating civil wars in the late 1990s up until 2003 and reading about them is harrowing stuff.  8% of the population was killed.  As we were driving today I couldn’t help looking at people on the roadside and wondering what part they may have played in those wars.  There were so many different factions, most of which recruited children as young as 7 as child soldiers.  Many will have died of course but what does that kind of trauma do to the survivors who will now be in their 20s?

43% of Liberia’s population is under the age of 15.  I wonder if the big drop down to the 15-44 year olds in the graph below partly reflects the effect of those wars.

After a whole day in the plane (there are no direct flights to Liberia from the UK) and another day in the car (gathering up instructors for our course, dropping off an obstetrician from Northern Ireland who is at a hospital a couple of hours north of here for a week to run the examinations for a group of midwives who have been taught extended skills), we are now ensconced in a house within the compound of CH Rennie hospital in Kakata.

Due to start the course the day after tomorrow so will be spending tomorrow setting up the room, ensuring the programme is correct and going through the content with Kola and Agnes, neonatal nurse practitioner and midwifery practitioner respectively who are going to be our co-instructors.

I’m struggling to upload pictures.  It’s been a bit rainy and heavy today so the photos won’t really do the country justice anyway.  It’s very green and lush against the red laterite soil that runs in a band across sub-Saharan Africa.  Here’s one I found on the internet which is pretty true to form except I’m not sure that I’ve seen any motorbike helmets yet.

Alistair and Julia are off to Liberia at the crack of dawn tomorrow to facilitate 2 Newborn Care Courses in CH Rennie hospital alongside a local neonatal nurse practitioner and some midwifery interns. My understanding is that an intern is a trained midwife who is then given extended roles which would overlap with those of an obstetrician in well resourced countries like the UK. But we’ll find out more when we’re there and have met the local faculty.

This trip is in collaboration with the charity, Maternal and Child Health Advocacy International (www.mcai.org) who originally designed the Newborn Care Course and under whose umbrella we taught the course in Cameroon until 2016.