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Liberia’s health sector continues to face challenges due to low budgetary allocations and lack of essential supplies. As a result, many Liberians died an untimely death at these health facilities.
By Emmanuel Wise Jipoh
Monrovia, May 30, 2025: Several patients, including Bill Mensah, Surprise Cuput, Precious, among others, in critical care at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center on Wednesday, May 28, described the country’s largest referral hospital as a death trap or halfway to your grave.
Voicing their frustrations, the Patients asserted that the John F. Kennedy Medical Hospital (JFK) is “just for killing”.
“We are here dying slowly, and there is no treatment given to us. “Even after the huge money we paid, our chances of (surviving) are slim,” Patients spoken to said.
The John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital was built in 1965 and began operating in 1971. It has come under a series of criticism, recently for its negligence involving patient deaths, and questionable healthcare services provided to the public, despite being the country’s number one hospital.
The latest outcry comes from Bill Mensah, 35, who has decried the hospital as a death trap, telling journalists that his only means of survival right now is at the mercy of God.
“I’m left only to die, if not for God, “because JFK, is not a hospital, but a halfway to death,” he says.
“We are suffering, and there is no treatment given to us. Every other day, they tell us no medication, despite the huge money we paid here.
“No treatment, no bed, and everything is so disgusting”, Mensah, who is receiving treatment at the JFK Dialysis Center, told reporters.
According to him, he’s been receiving treatment at the JFK Dialysis Unit for the past five months, and his treatment requirements include three sessions per week. Each session, he explained, costs approximately USD$ 75, with an additional $25 for injections and counselling-amounting to over $250 weekly.
He reiterated that despite these high costs, the hospital administration has often denied his treatment due to lack of essential supplies.
“We spent everything we have and still face delays and cancellations,” Mensah lamented. “Where is the money going?” he questioned.
“We are left to die, and there is no treatment given. Every day, my daughter experiences growing pain; her chances are slim,” Precious, a patient at the Dialysis Center Mother said.
Surprise Cuput, 26, a patient, also echoed that she reportedly went an entire week without dialysis–a potentially fatal gap in care for someone with end-stage kidney disease.
“Do you know what it means for someone like me to miss dialysis? It’s life- threatening,” she said.
“I spent nights outside the Center, sitting in a chair, just hoping for a chance.” Ms. Cuput, like many others, struggles weekly to secure funds, often borrowing from family or soliciting donations, only to be turned away because of malfunctioning machines or sometimes rejected, due to a lack of medical supplies at the state-owned, largest referral hospital.
Liberia first Dialysis Center at the JFK, was open in 2022, by former President George Manneh Weah,
Since then, originally inaugurated to provide lifesaving dialysis treatment to Liberians with kidney failure, the unit has become a symbol of despair as multiple patients have come forward with harrowing testimonies of persistent equipment failures, shortages of basic medical supplies, and unexplained service disruptions.
In January 2025, patients with kidney problems at the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Dialysis Center at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital wrote an open letter to President Boakai, decrying that delay in treatment at the facility is leading to death of patients.
To add push to this open letter, one family, the Tamba Family, filed a complaint against the JFK administration for wrongful medication, causing the death of their relative, Lovette Tamba, a 32-year-old Pregnant Patient, who allegedly died at the hospital after an alleged medical malpractice.
In September 2023, the hospital was faced with US$1.5 Million Lawsuit for an alleged wrongful surgical operation on a patient identified as Karen Gaydou Sehkehporh, who died at the hospital.
Efforts to contact the hospital administration, on concerns of the above situation at the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf JFK Dialysis Center, were fruitless.
Additionally, efforts by the head of Public Affairs at the John F. Kennedy Medical Hospital, Josephine Seekey, to have senior management speak on these concerns were also fruitless.
Seeker, briefly admitted to constraint faced by the hospital, but said there is no reagent at the Dialysis Center.
“Medications and supplies are often imported at great expense and there’s often delays, she said.
When asked how the unit is conducting tests in the absence of reagents, Seekey was unable to provide a clear answer, citing challenges in reaching responsible personnel.
Dialysis treatment requires precise chemical balances and sterile conditions, she added. -Edited by Othello B. Garblah.
