Liberia: USAID-STAIP Project Donates Medical Equipment to Montserrado County Health Team

The US Agency for International Development (USAID), through the Strategic Technical Assistance for Improve Health System (STAIP) project has donated medical equipment to the Montserrado County Health Team.

The items include 29 pieces of adult scales, 67 blood pressure apparatus, 70 delivery kits, 39 fetal dopplers, 34 hemoglobinometers, 82 infrared thermometers, 151 microcuvettes and 68 tapelines to improve health care services in rural and urban Montserrado County.

STAIP is a US$20 million contract that was awarded to Jhpiego to  strengthen the Ministry of Health (MOH) capacity to improve patient outcomes at primary health care facilities by providing sustainable capacity building and incentivizing better health systems performance.

Also, the project  supports interventions that improve financial management and accountability for primary-level at public health facilities, delivery of quality maternity and child health, family planning, and malaria services.

The objectives of the STAIP is to support delivery of efficient, responsive, equitable, and quality health services for improved access and health status for Liberians. 

Specifically, the project objectives are to manage the Capacities of County Health Teams (CHTs) and select Units at MOH to drive health system performance improvement and strengthen the quality of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent (RMNCAH) in Liberia. 

It also focused on the improvement of primary malaria health care services  and increased financial risk protection and better overall health sector financing. 

Varowo Gbassie, County Malaria Adviser-STAIP project-USAID said they have been working with the County Health team to strengthen malaria health services for better health outcomes since 2020 January.

“We have been conducting joint integrated supportive supervision visits where we identify gaps and based on those gaps, we have worked with the  Montserrado county health team through the clinical department and the diagnostic department to identify gaps and based on those gaps identify we were able to develop what we called the RTA, Revolving Drugs Fund. That fund is used to close gaps.”

According to her, the County health team submitted a list of medical equipment for quality health services — both rural and urban Montserrado — to improve the quality of health care services. 

Adophus Kanta, Montserrado County Community Health Department Director thanked the team for the gesture and promised that it will be used to provide access to quality health care services.