Liberia: il diario di un volontario a Monrovia

«A Monrovia manca qualsiasi tipo di servizio sanitario o sociale. Qui bisogna partire da zero».

A parlare così è Magnus Wolfe-Murray, country manager dell’ong di medici Merlin che lavora in Liberia dal 1987 e che attualmente assiste circa 150 mila persone.

Il diario di Magnus Wolfe-Murray, pubblicato dal quotidiano inglese Guardian, racconta dei primi passi verso la ricostruzione di Monrovia. «Qui nella capitale della Liberia sta avvenendo un grande cambiamento, le persone che erano state costrette a fuggire dalla guerra stanno lentamente tornando indietro».

Sogno piccoli segnali di speranza che rendono il lavoro di Magnus e compagni un po’ meno duro. Ma rimettere in piedi il Paese è difficile: «Stiamo cercando di coinvolgere il ministero della Salute in questa fase di passaggio dall’emergenza alla ricostruzione. Ma è difficile quando il suo personale non viene pagato, non macchine, computer e neppure carta su cui scrivere».

Di seguito, riportiamo per intero, e in inglese, il diario di Magnus.

In the city of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, a subtle change is taking place. Displaced people from the war-affected parts of town are slowly heading back – not all of them, but a good hundred thousand or so. We are soon going to have to move out of the emergency health centres we built in the schools and move into community clinics. This is not an easy process and there are existing staff at these community clinics who have to be taken on, and the old staff from the emergency clinic let go.

We’re trying to get the Ministry of Health on board with this whole drive from emergency to recovery but it’s hard when they are not paid – haven’t been for months – have no cars, computers or paper. It’s hard for them to be particularly motivated, a sentiment I fully understand.

Meanwhile, there are still around 150,000 displaced people in various centres around the city and county of Montserrado. A bizarre development took place this week at an industrial site – a massive swathe of land owned by a large US corporation – just outside Monrovia, where more than 40,000 displaced people are still sheltering. Merlin has been providing health services, water and latrines there since late June.

Yesterday though, we were asked to leave within 72 hours. “If you go, the displaced will have less desire to stay here,” we were told. “We have to get the plant back to work and these people are making it more difficult for our employees to work, what with the schools occupied and so on.”

If we leave, about 25,000 of those people will have no more free access to health, nutrition, immunisation, pre and post-natal services and so on. It seems that the management is not concerned and just want them out. We have put our case to the authorities, and the struggle continues.

Further south in Buchanan, the country’s second city, firmly in the hands of rebel leaders from the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (Model), Merlin is making great progress in the battle against cholera and other preventable illnesses.

Already our team there has started chlorinating some 2,700 wells a week – that’s a whole town’s water supply. We’ve also got the local hospital up and running and opened a cholera treatment unit there to treat the unlucky ones who fall prey to the diarrhoea and vomit-inducing disease, which can kill you within a few hours.

These are simple solutions and they work so well. It’s really motivating and helps you get up in the morning and negotiate the vessel of humanitarian enterprise for another day because you know that it’s going to save more lives.

Dr Clement, our Sudanese medical coordinator, headed south this week, all the way through rebel-held territory to the very border of the Ivory Coast. Only a couple of visits have been made down there since the end of the war. He was granted a “carte blanche” from the rebel leadership in Buchanan, who are pleased with Merlin’s extensive response in that city.

Dr Clement, who is assessing the health situation of coastal towns and villages on the way south, calls every day to confirm that, yes, there are a good number of people around and, no, there are no health services or any other social welfare whatsoever.

In other words, when people get sick they have nowhere to seek medical advice, drugs, help – the basic essentials. One of the most common problems when there are no doctors or health services, is that pregnant mothers who have complications before or during birth will be far more likely to die. Such tragic results can be avoided relatively easily through supporting basic health services, which Dr Clement’s trip will facilitate.

Again, it’s relatively simple: find out what’s needed, request delivery of essential medical supplies and equipment, find a way to transport it there, put management staff in place and recruit local health staff who are able to work. It certainly won’t be perfect and it won’t be at a particularly high level – the level of services that could be expected in Europe for example – but it will be something and it will save lives.