IMC’s Dr. Zenebe Helps Rebuild Liberia’s Health Care System

The first patient Dr. Zenebe operated on when he began working at IMC-BPRM Emergency Surgical Hospital in rural Liberia was a woman with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. The woman had traveled two hours by car to get to the facility, and by the time she arrived, almost all of the blood had drained from her body. “We had to transfuse blood from the patient’s own abdomen to save her,” says Zenebe. “If she had had to travel any farther, she would have died on the road.”

PHOTO: IMC Dr. Zenebe, a surgeon trained in Ethiopia, now runs an IMC clinic in rural Liberia.

As the only surgeon in Lofa County in northeastern Liberia, Zenebe performs more than 100 surgeries a month, many of them close calls. Liberia’s 14-year civil war destroyed most of the nation’s infrastructure, including the health care system. Today there are only 28 Liberian doctors in the country. Zenebe was recruited by IMC from his native Ethiopia in June 2006 as part of an initiative to rebuild Liberia’s health care system. To date, IMC has established 18 health care clinics and a hospital in Lofa County, which was hard-hit by the war.

Dr. Zenebe was trained at Addis Ababa University and worked as a surgeon and professor in Ethiopia for 24 years before joining IMC. “Having worked in Ethiopia for so long, I decided I wanted some experience of the outside world,” he says. He also liked the idea of working for a humanitarian organization. “Medicine itself is about humanity,” he says. “It makes sense.”

When Zenebe applied for his position with IMC, he asked his wife and two children how they would feel about him working in Liberia, and they gave him their blessings. To ensure that they weren’t merely assuaging him, however, Zenebe tested them. He drafted a fake email saying that he hadn’t gotten the job. “My family was quite unhappy, they were quite dismayed,” he says. “When I realized that they were willing to let me go, I said, ‘Why not try it? Try something new.’ ”

PHOTO: IMC Dr. Zenebe takes notes on a patient’s condition after performing a C-section.

Early in his career, Dr. Zenebe worked in rural Ethiopia for two-and-a-half years, which helped prepare him for the challenges of being a surgeon in Lofa County. At IMC-BPRM, Zenebe is on call 24 hours a day, and is often roused in the middle of the night to perform surgery. “The equipment here is quite primitive,” says Zenebe, “and we are treating emergency things, requiring specialized instruments. The two things sometimes clash.”

Furthermore, Lofa County is a malarious area: many of Zenebe’s patients are infected, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the potential complications of surgery. “They arrive in bad condition, with low hemoglobin,” he says. “Operating on them with their existing conditions is taxing. But with surgery, you see a patient saved. A dying patient who is then walking around. When I see my patients leave the hospital on their two feet, it’s quite satisfying.”