Strengthening, Expanding and Innovating Liberia’s Basic Package of Health Services

Background:

The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare created the National Health Plan as part of the interim poverty reduction strategy. One of the key components of the Liberian National Health Plan is the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS), which has four priority focus areas: Maternal and Newborn Health, Child Health, Adolescent Health, Mental Health, and communicable disease control. A recent BBC article described the shortage of doctors as a major barrier to delivering health care, stating that Liberia has only 50 doctors in its public sector, primarily based in the capital, Monrovia, to serve over 3.5 million people. Liberia suffers one of the world’s worst shortages in human resources for health.  Due to the shortage in doctors, as well as barriers to patient care such as accessibility to clinics, constant drug supplies, food shortages, poverty, lack of human resources, and stigma, the BPHS goals has been difficult to meet, particularly in the rural settings.

Program Objective:

To expand clinical services to remote, rural, and neglected parts of Southeast Liberia, including Grand Gedeh and River Gee Counties, for delivery of basic healthcare services within the public sector. Resources from the Ministry of Health and Tiyatien Health, with aid from the international community, will be pooled together to improve the nation’s healthcare services, resulting in expansion of the basic package of healthcare to primary care services in rural settings. Help strengthen and expand the BPHS in other public health facilities in the Southeast.

Program Description:

Tiyatien Health aims to support the MoHSW in providing BPHS to 70% of existing functional health facilities throughout the country by focusing on the Southeast of Liberia. This program will strengthen existing clinics in rural parts of the Southeast, while also expanding clinical services through additional clinic sites as needed. We hope to apply the innovative interventions used in Tiyatien Health’s HIV Equity Initiative to focus on maternal and child health, mental health, communicable disease control, and adolescent health while continuing to provide much needed psychosocial and economic support to improve the health outcomes of our patients and reduce poverty.

Project Contacts:

Weafus Quitoe

Project Coordinator

Weafus.quitoe@gmail.com

Rajesh Panjabi, M.D., M.PH.

Executive Director

rpanjabi@tiyatienhealth.org

Key Outputs:

• Reduction maternal and childhood mortality
• Improved health infrastructure in southeastern Liberia
• Improved socioeconomic status
• Increased life expectancy

• Advocacy for basic health services in neglected rural communities
• Improved health outcomes for vulnerable populations
• Trained community health workers and MoH staff
• Increased jobs in healthcare through clinic expansion site(s)

• Programs successes and challenges