GBARNGA, Bong – The medical director of the C.B. Dunbar Maternity Hospital in Gbarnga, Dr. Arthur Jones Wuoh, says the US$100,000 budgeted for the 2024 fiscal year is insufficient to effectively run the hospital.
C.B. Dunbar is the only specialized maternal hospital in rural Liberia. Its catchment community is over 60,000 people, and Wuoh said the hospital also caters to patients with maternal complications from bordering towns and villages within the Republic of Guinea.
The hospital’s medical director said that although the facility has received reasonable allotments in past years, the hospital’s budget “has dropped drastically.” In the 2022 fiscal year, the hospital received US$620,000; in the 2023 fiscal year, US$150,000 was budgeted for the facility. That downward trend has continued for the 2024 fiscal year to US$100,000 budgeted.
“We are calling on the Bong County Legislative Caucus and the government of President Joseph N. Boakai and Vice President Jeremiah Koung to see reasons to increase the budget of the hospital,” Wuoh noted.
If the government cannot increase the hospital’s budget, Wuoh believes patients will have to shoulder a more significant financial burden for surgeries, which are more costly than other treatments and procedures.
“As we speak, the hospital is struggling to survive,” he said. “The C.B. Dunbar Maternity Hospital cannot survive on a US$100,000 budgetary allotment for a year – it’s quite small.”
The hospital’s FY 2024 budget.
Wuoh said if the hospital’s budget does not increase, the institution will also have to manage expenses by requiring patients to contribute more significantly to their treatment. This, he believes, could drive more financially conscious patients away from modern medicine and towards the more cost-effective but largely unproven traditional medicine, potentially compromising their health.
Wuoh’s pleas may be ignored because both the House of Representatives and the Senate have concluded deliberations on the 2024 budget and have voted to pass it. Regardless, the medical director vowed to find a means to sustain the institution: “We will not close the hospital’s doors because our business is to keep the hospital open and operating throughout the day and night.”
Featured photo by Patrick Tokpah
