My friends quickly formed a 501(c)(3) charity, and between our group and another, we collected about $150,000 worth of resources. It was a very eclectic group of donors that rallied around the cause: humanitarians, a Christian ministry, several Muslim Lebanese businessmen, a US pharmacist, a CEO of an international medical corporation, a US/Liberian forestry and mining company, a physician, a physician assistant, and 20 dedicated Liberians all played a part in making things happen. The one common denominator we all shared was the determination to make a difference.

Above: Dr. Bollard standing beside Ebola prevention supplies in Monrovia.
Right: The road conditions as we traveled to deliver supplies to rural villages were very bad, as shown by this commercial truck stuck in a rut in River Gee County, Liberia.
Inset: The Renault delivery truck stuck in the mud in River Gee County, Liberia.

Putting Plans Into Action

Our original intention was to use that money to acquire and refurbish as many old ambulances as we could and to ship them to Liberia as quickly as possible. Within a month, that plan had to change because several countries had recognized Liberia’s transportation problems and started shipping them a large number of service vehicles. We shifted our primary focus from acquiring ambulances to transporting supplies to communities that would be very difficult for the mainline relief organizations to reach.

Our first ambulance shipped to the Liberia Medical & Dental Council (LMDC) in Monrovia. The LMDC thought of a novel way to use it to bring hope and education to communities within the country’s capital city. Its current plan is to use the ambulance to transport Ebola survivors (with lights flashing and sirens blaring) directly from the ETUs they are leaving back to their home communities (see Figure 4). We hope that the presence of this impressive rig and the celebration and education that will accompany its arrival in various Liberian communities will advance the relief effort.

The remaining funds were used to purchase and deliver food and sanitation supplies and to bring Ebola awareness campaigns to multiple rural communities we knew probably wouldn’t have been reached until after the rainy season. We hired drivers and all-wheel drive Renault vehicles from a mining company and transported bed linens, rice, buckets with faucets for hand washing, bleach, alcohol, powdered soap, pharmaceuticals, oral rehydration solutions, and personal protective equipment to approximately 25 communities and medical clinics. It took days to reach some of these villages, and they knew what an effort it was for us to make such a trip during the rainy season. They were grateful for the supplies and were eager to learn how to protect themselves during the EVD epidemic.