Monrovia, Liberia – r. John Emmanuel Tamba, the chief medical officer of John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, has attributed the dialysis outbursts to a lack of resources and an antiquated system. Several critical care patients at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center on Wednesday, May 28, including Bill Mensah, Surprise Cuput, and Precious, referred to the nation’s largest referral hospital as a “death trap” or “midway to your grave.”
Despite being the top hospital in the nation, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, which was constructed in 1965 and opened for business in 1971, has recently faced criticism for its irresponsibility in deaths of patients and dubious public healthcare services.
The most recent outrage comes from 35-year-old Bill Mensah, who has called the hospital a death trap and said that his only chance of surviving at the moment is by depending on God. He claimed that he has been undergoing treatment at the JFK Dialysis Unit for the last five months, and that three sessions per week are part of his treatment routine.
He explained that each session costs around $75 USD, with an additional $25 for counseling and injections, for a weekly total of almost $250.
He asserts that “JFK is not a hospital, but a halfway to death,” thus if it weren’t for God, “I’m left to die.”
“Despite the fact that we are in agony, we are not getting any medical care. We spent a lot of money here, yet every other day they tell us not to take any medication.
Reporters were told by Mensah, who is receiving treatment at the JFK Dialysis Center, “No treatment, no bed, and everything is so horrible.”
However, in response to the patient’s outburst, Dr. Tamba, who oversees all clinical matters at the institution, stated in an interview conducted over the weekend in his JFK office that they have been maintaining the facility with limited resources due to the budgetary constraints that JFK faces.
He revealed that the dialysis center’s issue began in 2024 when three of its nine machines malfunctioned. Since then, it has been challenging to fix the equipment since there is no service agreement with the Japanese vendor that provided them.
Dr. Tamba therefore noted that in order to have the equipment ready and working, they must contribute, using their limited resources, to provide Japan with $447,00 USD in order that the vendor can send in their technicians for repairs, which he said was done.
“Approximately twelve of the machines were operating. There was a rise in the number of service users. There were around fifty to sixty of us last year. We now have more than a hundred more people. Also, the people who are visiting lack the funds to pay for the service. Our financial means to support the center are constrained. Therefore, the scenario that occurred a few days ago occurred due to the growing number of patients and mega resources. All of the machines in this room are old. The devices are more than a decade old. We were using a middleman to import materials from Japan, but we had to cease because of various problems. We next traveled to Nigeria, but that trip was unsuccessful. Currently, we are getting supplies from Senegal, but the same human error-prone intermediary arrangements remain in place,” Dr. Tamba stated.
He said that certain machines are aging, which allows the facility and Stewart’s to correctly diagnose and treat patience using the most recent and current equipment.
He claims that if a person is diagnosed with candy failure, they must receive three sections of treatment-care per week. This initially cost roughly $300 USD, but going forward, the patient must pay $100 USD for each of the three times they visit the center for treatment.
Meanwhile, he said that because of the financial difficulties citizens are faced with, there are not too many people that can provide such amount, while arguing that the system can’t be sustainable through fees for service when they are not effective.
“Therefore, sourcing the necessary resources to be able to maintain the facility is a very challenging for JFK and we have been struggling with that. When we took over last year’s, we met about nine machines here functioning but as time went on, three went down and only six was operational. So, now we want the government to provide more resources and help us get up-to-date dialysis machine to make the service effective and efficient,” Dr. Tamba narrated.
Providing historical background regarding the dialysis Center, he reflected that the center was established and placed under the Ministry of Health for the period of three years.
Dr. Tamba, “During that time, the Center had about ten dialysis machine from a company in Japan, where Stewart’s were sent for training to operate the machine, which then provided service for a limited population or patients.”
“Dialysis treatment is expensive. For a person to get that treatment for a year, it’s over two hundred thousand United States dollar,” he said.
Reported by: Prince Saah
