Nurses stopping mid-treatment to haul water. Janitors taking placentas home to be buried, for lack of an incinerator. Patients with no choice but to relieve themselves in dirty fields outside the hospital.
These conditions and more are captured in a new photo gallery from Liberia, where, nearly 18 months after the country was declared free of Ebola, hospitals and medical clinics still struggle to function with poor and intermittent water supplies and broken toilets and incinerators.
In the Monrovia suburb of Paynesville, which was quarantined during the Ebola epidemic, healthcare staff still report water shortages and overflowing toilets which put patients at risk of infection and disease.
The lack of safe water, adequate sanitation and proper hygiene has a severe and burdensome impact on the daily lives of Liberians.
Nearly four million Liberians are ruthlessly affected by these challenges each day with staggering impact on the economy and environment.
The lack of safe water, adequate sanitation and proper hygiene is causing a crisis in our country. But, Liberia’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) crisis is not due to scarcity.
It is due exclusively to the lack of access, effective public policy, political will and determination.
In a recent report, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that many Liberians die each year from preventable diseases attributed to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and improper hygiene.
Less than a week after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary, Jeh Johnson re-authorized an extension of 6 months Temporary Protected Status (TPS) assigned to Ebola Affected Countries namely Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum Wednesday directing Secretary Johnson to implement an 18-month Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberian Citizens in the United States through March 31, 2018, according to a press release on the White House website.
President Obama’s DED directive will automatically extends work permits for Liberians who were forced to flee from their country to the US because of an 11 year civil war between Sierra Leone.
This DED extension doesn’t cover Liberians who did not have TPS on Sept. 30, 2007, certain criminals and people subject to the mandatory bars to TPS and those whose removal is in the interest of the United States, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Wednesday
The Liberia NGOs Network (LINNK) has held Citizens Engagement Dialogue Forum in partnership with WaterAid Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Forum was held under the theme: "Water for Sustainable Growth", in line with the celebration of the 2016 World Water Week held in Stockholm, Sweden.
The Christian Charity, Living Water International has declared six communities in Margibi County Open Defecation Free (ODF).
The exercise was verified and approved by the Liberian government, through the Ministries of Health and Public Works in partnership with other actors in the WASH sector of Liberia.
These communities obtained the status through the government’s driven Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) Program.
