By James Kokulo Fasuekoi|JNB-F Comm. Dept. Director

Mr. David Rickie-Karnu, Director for Material Management at Liberia’s largest referral John F. Kennedy Hospital, spent hours Monday afternoon with a team of his hospital’s lab technicians, trying to assemble the other pieces to the two giant modern X Ray machines donated to the facility by President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s charity.

The two brand-new State-of-the-art equipment are among a total of six modern lab machines secured by the charity, the JNB Foundation, and brought into the country from India. The remaining four pieces of those X Ray instruments are most likely to be distributed to other major health facilities here after an assessment is done by the charity in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.   

Monday’s donation to the JFK Hospital is probably the fifth or sixth of such major donations of urgently needed medical supplies that included ten incubators to the government-run hospital in the capital, Monrovia. This hospital remains the highest beneficiary of the president’s charity since Pres. Joseph Boakai took over power in January 2024, mainly because of its near deplorable state then.  

Until Monday’s donation the hospital, according to Director Rickie-Karnu, maintained a single X Ray machine which he described as being “Outdated,” an assessment confirmed by the Chief Executive Officer at the JFK Hospital, Dr. Linda A. Birch, during a brief turn-over ceremony at the foundation’s headquarters. This is after a visibly elated Pres. Joseph Nyuma Boakai strolled to the charity, inspected the machines and left for work.

Dr. Birch said the new state-of-the-art equipment would reduce patients’ waiting time, and at the same time increase doctors’ work capacity to serve the facility’s currently overwhelming flow of patients daily.

Hon. Jackson K. George Jr., the foundation’s chief executive director, recounted what he termed JFK Hospital’s “heavy workload” plus its struggles to secure needed medical supplies to be able to properly treat her patients. He indicated he would even consider giving JFK a “third X Ray machine” based on its needs in addition to the patients’ high volume daily.

While Material Management Director Rickie-Karnu expressed deep gratitude for the foundation’s kindness and President Boakai’s generosity, he said the maternity and children’s wards also need help. “We need kid’s beds,” he told this writer Monday, as he oversaw the lifting of the donated medical supplies and called out for more assistance.