Opposition Senator Saah Joseph is proposing a US$10 million Special Medical Fund to fight growing wave of cancer and heart complications-related deaths in the country.
By Lincoln G. Peters
Monrovia, Liberia, November 27, 2024 – Montserrado County Senator Saah Joseph proposes US$10 million Special Medical Fund in the 2025 Draft National Budget currently before the Liberian senate for passage.
Senator Joseph, staunch steward of the former ruling Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) says US$5 million of said amount should go toward equipping specialized doctors to perform services in country, while the remaining US$5 million may be used to address special medical needs of Liberians face with cancer and heart complications outside the country.
He notes that US$10 million is nothing for the government to do to save (in his words), alarming death rate because of cancer and heart problems across the country.
He added that such fund would enable citizens to feel impact of the national budget directly.
He made the proposal on Tuesday, November 26, 2024 in senate plenary and further in a special press briefing with reporters.
Senator Joseph urges his colleague to approve the proposed Special Medical Fund in the Draft National Budget because it will address such complications that are mostly referred aboard due to lack of specialists.
According to him, to equip specialized doctors to do the job here would cost approximately five million for equipment and specialized
Hospital to tackle such illnesses that are taking lives of many Liberian on a daily basis.
He also suggests that the Special Medical Fund should be managed by a special unit or department within the Ministry of Health to enhance transparency and accountability, while noting that patients will be approved for the fund based on doctors’ medical diagnosis, which he believes will make it difficult for anybody to fabricate the illness.
“…I am pushing for this now because we have the National Budget before us and this not coming from anybody; rather, the Liberian people. It is their money, the budget. We don’t have insurance that covers all of our citizens and so, with that it will greatly help”, he pleads.
Explaining more, he says the only thing that is needed to equip those specialized doctors and the health sector to perform surgical services are financial resources and if that is done, those equipment are shippable in less timeframe.
Sen. Joseph cites Ghana as an example that on a yearly basis provides professional medical treatment for her citizens through intervention of international doctors at their health facilities that are well equipped, adding that the only thing the government does is to carter to their stay.
“A sister of mine, who was chief administrative officer for me at the House of Representatives, this year she started her cancer treatment and she passed while on the treatment. She was referred to India. There are also series of heart disease cases for children that have taken their lives. The last time I visited a program at the Monrovia City Hall organized by a medical doctor to raise resources for twelve children below the ages of 2 and5 years who had heart problems,”
However, he laments that out of the 12, only four are life, awaiting death, while noting that there are other health cases of people sitting home, awaiting death only because local doctors informed them that they have to go outside for treatment.
“Some of these individuals that have those cases, they are unable to even provide their daily meal, before talking about hospital. As such, it is the government, it’s the constitutional rights of those citizens that government caters to them. We want the government and my colleagues to support this idea to reduce the death of cancer and heart problems in the country.”
Sen. Saah Joseph is passionate about Liberia’s health systems, where he contributed so immensely during the Ebola outbreak here in 2013, bringing ambulances into the country to take death-stricken citizens to health facilities across Montserrado and adjacent counties. Editing by Jonathan Browne
