PHOTOS & STORY BY JAMES FASUEKOI
On August 17, 2024, a JNB Foundation medical team composed of departmental heads from the foundation’s Rehab Headquarters in Paynesville left the Rock-Etta-James Health Center in Congo Town well-pleased over high attendance of the Monrovia Citywide medical drive jointly sponsored by this mental home and the foundation.
The exercise lasted for an entire day, with patients/participants coming from as far as Margibi, Bong and Bomi counties. At least up to 102 patients received eye, blood and diabetic/sugar screening. Attendants found to be experiencing some kind of eye-defect or reading problem were issued reading glasses while others received eye drops, vitamin A, or sunshades to use.
Of the overall figure of 102, fifty-seven were males and 45 females. Mrs. Comfort Nyenetue-Cooper, a U.S. trained nurse who returned years ago to help her country and people, discovered an increase in typhoid, malaria and fever in many people who arrived August 17, at her health center for screening from especially rural counties of Liberia.
As for the eye screening or exam, the one-day events recorded 15 refractive errors, 12 conjunctivitis and 11 cataract in women alone. For males, there were 9 refractive errors, 6 cataract patients, plus 9 conjunctivitis, in addition to 8 glaucoma cases. At least 5 women were identified with serious conditions requiring surgery plus 3 male patients.
A man, Matthew Clarke, 62, was recorded as the patient with the most serious case, or condition associated with urology. The foundation’s medical team in collaboration with the Rock-Etta-James Mental health facility will now have Mr. Clarke undergo additional tests in order to determine their next course of action in his case.
Rebecca Wuoleigh, a 79-year-old, and resident of Zuluyee (near Ganta, Nimba) who will turn 80 year-old by this November happened to be the oldest patient of the day. For humanitarian reasons Mrs. Comfort Cooper, told the center’s registrar to give back the senior citizen’s $1,000.00 LD registration fees which was done.
“I’m not looking for riches but I just want to help my country,” Mrs. Cooper, who now shuttles between Liberia and the United States to see her two daughters and husband, told a group of patients waiting in line for examination.
“I wasn’t so fortunate when growing…I didn’t often have breakfast before going to school,” she continued as she prepared to poke the finger of one teenager in order to check for malaria symptoms. Cooper and her siblings attended a secondary school somewhere in Totota-Suakoko, Bong County, at the time.
In contrast to Cooper’s own childhood life, her children born in the United States have got more than they need in food. Reacting to life in her parent’s household in those days, she says: “My children living in the states now are so blessed; they choose what type of cereal or corn flakes they want to eat.
Comfort Cooper’s mental home was erected 2022, purposely to cater to drug-substance abusers, a medical health crisis that remains very serious in the war-ravaged nation and continues to grow rapidly daily. The center, she told this writer, currently holds about 11 patients, including a couple of adult and young ladies.
Though she intends to accept many more substance-use-patients as the demand for treatment grows, however, for now, she appeared overwhelmed during the past months specifically in terms of housing, treating and feeding inpatients, many of them youths, who even demand more than their fair-share of three-times a day meal.
“Some families come in, pay a fee of $50.00, drop off their children [mostly juvenile] and turn their back and never return again,” she maintained.
Somehow, due to ethical reasons her facility does not turn back patients for lack of money, once the facility initiates the treatment process.
Instead, Cooper’s Mental Home moves on and finishes treatment for these individuals she described as the “future leaders” of Liberia although such a kind gesture is seemingly being abused by many.
It’s such that her facility, she said, occasionally runs low on feeding supplies and money, to help maintain this complex with constant water and electricity supply. At one point she came close to shutting it down and returning to the U.S. to her family but decided to reconsider such a decision, remaining here and helping her country.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Comfort Cooper is appealing to President Joseph N. Boakai Sr. together with humanitarian groups in Liberia and abroad including the U.S. to join in collaboration with her center in order to fulfill her long-term dream of helping her native land, Liberia.
