An Experience with Life Changing Consequence

My Saturdays usually begin by 7:30 with some exercise pattern. It is often either a jog that climaxes with a workout or it is entirely a workout section for about an hour. For the best part of two years, I have heard of Serene Health Mobile Clinic through a friend and it was not long before I met its very gorgeous Chief Executive Officer. She spelt out to me the concepts and motivation for the establishment of the mobile clinic which from all research point to it being the first to be established in Liberia by a native Liberia with no outside support or finances.

The CEO Mrs. Maima Pelham is a graduate of Cuttington University with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a Master of Public Health. Upon completing her bachelor’s degree, she returned to Monrovia where she grew up. She worked for a while as an employee of the Ministry of Health, assigned at the Redemption Hospital which is in one of Monrovia’s slum communities, New Kru Town. As if the challenges pose to the hospital because of its location was not enough, it also serves as the largest referral hospital for the greater part of eastern and northern Montserrado. During Maima’s term as the hospital she was inspired by the experiences of real life challenges faced by dwellers of New Kru Town and an even greater one from those from outside Monrovia who would go through a lot of ordeals to get to the facility and once they have managed to get there, they were still faced with the challenge of not having enough funds to pay for medication for themselves and their family members. Most of those facing the biggest challenges were pregnant woman, older citizens and teen mothers. Maima who has just come out of college with a vision for herself would soon see her dreams of personal advancement withered because of her deep care and concern for humanity, she would spend her entire salary on helping those patients in dire need of care, something which at times would land her into debts.

She would later resign her job in 2013 to establish Serene Health for All Mobile Clinic which she currently manages and serve as its Executive Director. She felt that the time was right for her to focus on a different goal and much bigger one than rendering assistance in the facility. Her vision for Serene Health was to go into the world and save lives of vulnerable people who cannot afford to pay for healthcare for themselves; something only most often read in fictional books and are often super heroes and heroines attributes. An initiative coming from someone who has just graduated from college and had her first job for a few years and resigned that post was a dream that would scare a lot of people, but she didn’t give up. After a period of putting the concept into work, Liberia’s first ever; locally formed Mobile Clinic is borne in November of 2013. The Mobile Clinic was formed with its goal to take health care services to the most vulnerable people in the hard to reach parts of Montserrado. Serene Mobile Clinic in her effort to attain its goal rely solely on goodwill contributions from individuals and institution who have got soft and good heart for giving back to humanity. These donations come during fund raiser gala that are organized once every year. The fund raised from these galas see 100% going toward purchasing of medication and medical equipment for the course. Serene Health is staffed by Doctors, Nurses, Mid-wives, Lab Technicians, Social Workers and administrative personnel who are all volunteers to this course. Serene Mobile needs a donations and partnership both locally and internationally to foster and achieve its goals and objectives.

Since the start of the Mobile Clinic’s operations, it has had over 20 medical outreach and has seen 5,500 PEOPLE in several rural and slum communities in Montserrado. Serene Health envisions expanding its operations and its coverage to the rest of Liberia. Liberia being an under developed country faces a lot of challenges and the ones to be posted in the quest to go country wide is no small task, but it is Serene Health’s vision and goal for the future. Serene Health Mobile Clinic latest outreach was on Saturday, August 3, 2019, it was a pleasure and an honor to have been among those giving what they have got for humanity. The experience was so much good that it is my wish to always be a part of this initiative as we all work in whatever way we can in making Serene Mobile Clinic a success. Particularly touching was a young man suffering from epilepsy who was brought by his grandfather for treatment. With limited resources, Serene Health’s work has not been able to include mental health and neurological services. Consequently, this young man while in dire need of care for to control his seizure, he could only get treatment for other health conditions as there was no medication to treat epilepsy. During this visit to Yarkpai’s Town, Todee District about 3 hours’ drive from Monrovia, the outreach team was able to provide services to 306 people of all ages.

In making Serene Mobile Clinic an organization that caters the everybody it meets during its outreach, LiCORMH hope to have it incorporate service provision for mental health conditions and neurological disorders like epilepsy and other related illness. The Mobile Clinic during its next outreach will have on its team one of both Mental Health Clinician and an Adolescent Mental health Clinician that have been trained by the Carter Center mental Health Program and one Addiction Specialist that was trained by the LiCORMH, Ministry of Health, WHO and COLOMBO Plan partnership.