GANTA, Nimba – One of Liberia’s oldest health facilities, the Ganta United Methodist Hospital, has started construction of fencing around the hospital’s immediate facilities.

The hospital, which is owned and operated by the Liberia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, has been providing health services to residents of Nimba and those from neighboring Guinea and Ivory Coast since it was founded in 1945.

According to the administrator of the hospital, Patrick Mantor, there have been several challenges faced by past administrations which prevented the hospital from taking on the project to fence in the compound. He said the lack of finance was the major barrier.

Mantor said the fencing, which will cost US$42,000, will be completed before mid-April this year. He made the disclosure to reporter Presley Boozan of Radio Kergheamahn over the weekend in Ganta in an interview at his Ganta United Methodist Hospital office.

“The fencing project [is] almost 50 percent [complete],” Mantor said. “If we [had] the resources or supplies [arriving] quickly from Monrovia, I could say we would be 80 percent [complete by now].

“But however, we are moving slowly but surely, and this is a very great project that will really benefit Ganta Hospital and its environs,” he said.

“I am really happy,” the hospital administrator added. “This fence project will provide security for the hospital, the properties, the staff and even the patients.”

Mantor said 90 percent of the funding for the fence is from the Christian Health Association of Liberia, or CHAL.

“Our German partner through the Christian Health Association of Liberia is providing funds for the project,” he said. “But we are obligated as Ganta Hospital’s administration to provide 10 percent of the total project cost – that is in the amount of US$4,852. This money we are responsible to pay and we have given it to the project already.”

Mantor highlighted several achievements at the hospital so far since taking over as administrator of the hospital in March 2014.

“We renovated two of our doctors’ residences. We’ve completed a building to host people coming in and out of the hospital, and have refurnished the hospital conference room, and as I speak, renovation works are ongoing on the hospital administration building,” he said.

“We are going to modernize this hospital administrative building within the next three weeks,” he said.

Mantor praised CHAL for providing the hospital with US$12,000 that was used to renovate some bathrooms of the hospital and the obstetrics ward. He said the hospital is doing everything possible to raise US$26,000 for the modernization of the labor and deliverance wards.

Despite the hospital’s achievements, Mantor said there still remain many challenges for the hospital administration. He said there are leaking roofs in many parts of the hospital and deplorable sewage system.

“Our next focus is to complete the re-tiling of the hospital floor that we started sometime back and to renovate the surgical wing of the hospital,” he said.

Mantor said Ganta Methodist Hospital would need at least US$7 million to fully modernize.

Mantor added that, “This will see improved laboratory equipment being brought in at the hospital; thus getting the hospital on a true footing of a referral hospital. All these are future plans which may not be completed during our administration, but in future to come.”

Featured photo by Arrington Ballah