Flashback to Liberia and the present Ebola crisis.

It has been 36 years since I lived in Liberia served as a missionary involved in educational and the medical ministries over seeing pastoring a church and planting churches in villages. Our school was in elementary school and our clinic was run by 2 nurses. Medical services in Liberia have not changed that much. There may be more doctors today. Today there is one doctor for every 71,429 people. I believe the number was little bit worse back then. 

The two American missionaries who received treatment in North Carolina, Dr. Brantley and Nancy Writebol we're working in an SIM hospital just outside of Monrovia. When I lived in Liberia SIM hospital though small if you were treated there your chances of surviving were probably the best. Their efforts not prevent them from coming down with the disease.

They just set up two locations to specialize in the care of the Ebola patients. The JFK hospital is the main Government hospital in the country. The other location sounds to me like the rubber plantation at Firestone where they would've had a small hospital. Firestone is American Company and through the years I've been generous with their care for their workers and community. 

One of the first symptoms or complaints of Ebola is a head ache and

flu like symptoms. Without a lab it's complicated because these are also the symptoms of malaria and other tropical diseases. Keep in mind how few doctors there are around and labs and lab techs. When we were there we had to use our eyes and common checklist for basic diseases. We did not use rubber gloves that I recall back then but with the two different outbreaks in the 80s and today I think rubber gloves would've been very common. Part of my job was to be a gofer to get the medical supplies that we needed. It is like a business and you got to think ahead. Any epidemic would challenge any planning. Being there  that I can see other problems that they would've had. Medical supplies sent to Africa often gets caught up into the black market. 

Where we lived is right by the L in the work Liberia on the map. There are no confirmed cases at our

location means there is no longer any medical service in that location. When we were there we served an area about the size of a Will County where I now live. We had to leave before the wars began in 1979.

Imagine working in the isolation suits in tropical heat in the 90s. This time year is the rainy season in jungle locations your water which comes from the Rainwater. In the dry season your water comes from the local streams which you have to boil and filter. Liberians themselves have very poor sanitation practices. 

For people coming in to Liberia right now to help out with the epidemic they will enter a place far different from where they came. In viral war they will need great courage. They will have to engineer the best hygiene they can and manage the medical war that may lack planning and managing. 

Ebola they say will run another 6 months which will be in the 1st part of the dry season. Right now be ready for rain every day. Nobody in the news has talked about the rainy season and the impact it makes. Most roads are very difficult this time of year. 

Be thankful that here in US we have one Doctor for 408 people. We have problems but think what it would be like if we had one doctor for every 71,000 of us. Keep walking