BYLINE: Soka Moses
DATE: 30 March 2004
SOURCE: E. Christopher Cone & William Martin,
Commissioned by IU Liberian Collections Project

In March 2004, Mr. Saturday G. Quellie, Medical Technologist and Acting Director of Phebe Training Programs (PTP), was interviewed by Liberian writer Soka Moses, concerning the destruction of the facilities in which the PTP were housed at Phebe Hospital in Suakoko. Mr. Quellie also serves as the hospital employee elected by his colleagues as their representative on the Board of Trustees of the hospital.

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Phebe Training Program (PTP) has suffered massive destruction and setbacks and now faces a nearly hopeless situation as the result of attacks by the rebel army Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) in Bong County. The Phebe Training Program is an essential part of the hospital, educating nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians and nurse-anesthetists who serve not only at Phebe but at other hospitals in the country.

Reporting on the conditions at Phebe after visiting the compound with a United Nations convoy of aid organizations, Mr. Quellie said that PTP has experienced an unimaginable level of destruction and looting. The Training Program has extensive facilities on the Phebe Hospital compound in Suakoko in central Liberia.

Walking through the wreckage of the school, Mr. Quellie said that PTP's library was completely looted, and all the textbooks and equipment were stolen or destroyed. He added that PTP's library had been the best medical library in Liberia before the LURD attacks on Gbarnga.

"In addition to hundreds of new textbooks, many of them sent by supporters in the United States and Europe, our library was equipped with computers, videos, slide programs and other teaching aids."

Only a few of the textbooks could be gathered as the LURD troops approached the hospital in mid-March. They were saved, but all the rest of the library books, materials and equipment were either looted or smashed beyond repair. Sadly, he said, the books were taken by uneducated fighters who do not understand the value of a book and what it contains because they are illiterate. They used the books to start cooking fires, or for toilet paper.

In addition to the books and computers, Mr. Quellie said, "Most of the furniture in the classrooms and offices is gone." He explained that the few pieces of furniture that remained were smashed. File cabinets were wrecked so they could not be used again, and all their contents were thrown around the rooms and left scattered on the floor.

Beds, mattresses, air conditioners, and every piece of furniture in the school's three dormitories were all stolen. Doors were broken, window glass either stolen or smashed, window screens damaged, commodes and sinks were stolen, and even the light switches and electric outlets were ripped from the walls.

A part of the roof is gone. It was removed, sheet by sheet, and taken away by unpaid fighters who carry looted goods across the border into Guinea or Sierra Leone to sell. Three of the big dormitory buildings were stripped in this manner. The remaining roof on other buildings has numerous perforations made by gunshots. These gunshot holes permit rain water into the buildings. During the rainy season, when several inches of rain can fall every day. This is a terrible problem, and continues to destroy the buildings every day.

Phebe Training Programs (PTP) is one of five nursing schools that had been operating in Liberia before the most recent military violence. It is a matter of record, Mr. Quellie said that PTP is academically ahead of the other schools.PTP is the only school in Liberia that had been conducting academic training for laboratory technicians, nurse anesthetists and R.N. midwives. In addition, PTP also operates training programs for nurses and midwives, as do other nursing schools in Liberia.

Because of its excellent reputation and facilities, the hands-on experience of working and learning in Phebe Hospital, and the fact that PTP had electric current at night for studying, the school attracted the best students from all over Liberia to study for careers in medicine.

The buildings occupied by Phebe Training Programs had been wrecked during the Liberian civil war. The school resumed functioning in 2000 after renovation of the facility was completed. The renovation of PTP was funded by the Danish Government through the Danish Evangelical Mission (DEM). The DEM Project also provided furnishings for the classrooms, offices and dormitories, and in addition made funds available for faculty compensation and operational costs.

When LURD attacked Gbarnga in March 2003, the students and faculty were forced to flee to the relative safety of Monrovia. Theory classes continued in two classrooms made available by the John F. Kennedy Medical Center. When rebels invaded the capital city, the students had to flee again, this time Salala in Bong County. There they were able to complete their clinical requirements at the Phebe field hospital, set up in big tents at Salala. This field hospital is a very busy place, and the PTP students gained much useful experience while completing their studies.

Despite the terrors of war and the need to work under security conditions that most people could not imagine, Mr. Quellie said, PTP graduated 13 students in November. Included were seven lab technicians, four midwives and two nurse anesthetists.

According to Mr. Quellie, PTP faces a nearly hopeless situation. The DEM project that renovated the school and funded it for three years has expired. Whether PTP can find funds for the reconstruction of its buildings in Suakoko and the reopening and continuation of its training programs is an unanswered question. Most possible donors are looking very carefully at the record of instability and constant war in Liberia, and asking themselves whether they want to invest very large amounts of money in a project such as PTP.

Although the situation at Phebe Hospital is exceedingly grim, Mr. Quellie added, other hospitals in the area are much worse off. The hospitals at Voinjama, Zorzor, Yekepa and Ganta have been totally destroyed in the war. Since it appears possible to rebuild at Phebe, one can expect that this hospital will be serving a very large area of central and northern Liberia. The training of competent staff members is therefore of great importance.

Despite the gloomy situation, Mr. Quellie said, he has faith in God that PTP will be able to move back to the Phebe Hospital compound in Bong County. Such a move, he said, could take place as soon as few of the facility is renovated. Security at Phebe has been assured by the Pakistani Battalion of the United Nations peacekeeping troops, since February. Meanwhile, PTP has commenced classes for 16 RN students still enrolled in the PTP, in order to complete their studies. However, no new students will be enrolled until PTP moves back to its Phebe Compound, where it has adequate facility, if renovated, to accommodate many students

Complete rehabilitation of the facility will certainly be a very long process, he said.

Considering the destruction and setbacks that have occurred, Mr. Quellie summarized, the reopening of PTP is still a dream. Until this dream becomes a tangible reality, PTP students and more than one hundred new applicants can only wait anxiously to commence classes. For the jobless members of the faculty and staff, who are aware of the very large problem of rebuilding the campus, at times it seems so overwhelming that it looks hopeless.

"Our only hope is in God," Mr. Quellie concluded. "We pray every day that God will turn the hearts of possible donors so that they may see our terrible condition, and so that they will understand the need for medical training in Liberia. It is to God and to these possible donors that we must turn in hope at this apparently hopeless time in the history of the Phebe Training Program."

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