Monday 13th November Part 2

We are planning to rebuild the eye unit in Harper (hopefully with UN Mission in Liberia funding, although we must submit the plans for this to them as a matter of great urgency), but it was clear that staffing would be a huge challenge.

All of us were feeling pretty depressed at this stage, and once our flight was formally cancelled we went to see Verda’s office at the National Drugs Service. Our depression was further exacerbated as Alex, the Finance Officer, had just received an eviction letter saying we had to leave our current office space by the end of the year. (We have since received some good news – the Ministry of Health have offered us some much better office space).

We went on to visit the Minister of Health, and I was impressed by their openness and eagerness to address the issues.

Sightsavers has offered funding to support the eye-care secretariat, in the form of a full time Programme Manager. The Minister was keen that this post should be openly advertised with the salary clearly set out in the advert, rather than having someone appointed via patronage. We agreed to help them organise this. He was very keen on our proposal to become tougher with ‘skippers’, and said the Ministry itself was planning to take a similar line. I felt reassured that the Minister and his staff had the right mindset and were honest and reliable.

Today amply demonstrated the difficulty of trying to operate in a post conflict country.