Phebe Hospital - biomeds at work

I spent this past weekend at Phebe Hospital, the second biggest hospital in Liberia which is about four hours northeast of Monrovia. They had a bunch of unusable medical equipment and a broken oxygen compressor, and so the hospital administrator invited up a few of the Mercy Ships engineers up for the weekend to see what we could do. I went up with Carlos, the head biomedical man, and Alan, a mechanical/electrical engineer.

We stayed at the hospital administrator's home and had an absolutely lovely time in fellowship with him over the weekend. His name is Rev John Lunn; he is a Lutheran missionary from the United States and is currently the only non-Liberian living in Phebe. It was really cool to learn about his past. He has spent years serving the Lord in a homeless shelter in the Bronx, in Hawaii, in India, and now here in Liberia. Out of all of the places this man has been, he told us that this has been his toughest assignment. The lack of infrastructure in the country makes everything a challenge. John told us that the two biggest concerns of the hospital are 1) electricity and 2) running water. In the age of gene therapy and remotely performed telesurgeries how can a hospital's biggest concerns be electricity and running water?? Apparently nothing is easy at the hospital. If one thing goes right it's almost guaranteed that two things will go wrong. Yet in spite of these frustrations and his cultural isolation, John exudes peace and hospitality. He has such a sweet, sincere and peaceful demeanor. It's amazing what one can accomplish with Christ as his foundation.

Fixing the medical equipment wasn't quite as enriching as sharing stories with John. We repaired two machines and ended up throwing a lot of stuff away. Such is the life of a biomedical technician, I suppose! Still, I think the hospital appreciated the help. The staff gave us a big box of locally grown fruit as a thank you. From those who have little, such a gift means a lot.

One of the highlights of our day working on the equipment: we got to meet Liberia's Minister of Health! He used to work at Phebe hospital, so he comes for a few days each month to perform some surgeries. It was really neat to talk with him and hear some of his thoughts about the country's current need for biomedical technicians. Apart from Carlos and myself, there are none.