Jomah Kollie

Jomah Kollie

Q: This is Sam Robson here with Mr. Jomah Kollie. It is March 14th, 2017, and we are at Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. I have the privilege of talking with Mr. Kollie today about his role in the Men's Health Screening Program and just his experience of the overall Ebola epidemic in Liberia, 2014 to 2016. Thank you for being with me, Mr. Kollie.

KOLLIE: Thank you very much.

Q: Of course. Could we start out, would you mind just saying "my name is" and then pronouncing your name for me?

KOLLIE: So my name is Jomah Kollie.

Q: Great. And what is your current position?

KOLLIE: I'm the current project coordinator for the Men's Health Screening Program.

Q: And if you were to tell someone in just a few sentences what that means, what would you say?

KOLLIE: I am responsible for the day-to-day activity of the Men's Health Screening Program. Operationally, including administration, logistics. At the 00:01:00same time, I am also responsible to liaise with the Ministry of Health [and Social Welfare] regarding the Men's Health Screening Program's activities. When we have some issues that require Ministry of Health attention, I'm also involved in working with the ministries, authorities, to ensure that the Men's Health Screening Program objectives are met. I represent the World Health Organization, which is WHO, on this program. I also represent that in terms of WHO provides the technical support as well, financial, the human resource management, WHO is also involved in that. I'm representing WHO from that perspective as the project coordinator.

Q: Thank you. That was an excellent summary. Could you tell me when and where you were born?

KOLLIE: Well, I was born on September 12th, 1968, in Firestone. Margibi County is one of the counties of Liberia, unto the union of Mr. and Mrs. Tarnue Kollie Karpu. Both of them are dead. Then in 1978, of course my mother got divorced--my father divorced my mother, actually. I grew up with a single parent, with my mother, and I remember sometimes when I was a child, a boy really, my mother was ill and I took her to the hospital, and while sitting in the queue, it was 00:03:00actually her turn to be consulted by the consulting physician at the time. Then suddenly, some big person actually who is well-known in the society came in and took the place of my mother for consultation. I felt very bad because I saw my mother in a very ill condition and someone came in when my mother should've been taken care of. So from that point I thought I would then go into the field of healthcare to be able to prevent other persons suffering from this kind of thing.

When I graduated from high school, I thought to go to the University of Liberia, but I'm from a very poor family and going to the University of Liberia at the time, the system wasn't regular, so if you went to the University of Liberia, 00:04:00you had to be prepared to graduate in eight years or nine years or so. I wanted to go to do biology and then chemistry minor, and then become a medical doctor. Go to the medical school. My mother then told me, "Look, you see my condition at the moment. By the time you go to the University of Liberia, looking at how irregular the semesters are, I don't know if you're going to have someone sponsoring you to complete your university degree. Once you have decided to go to the medical field, you can go for the nursing program, which is three years, and then after three years you can start working and then maybe further your education to whatever level you want to." That's how I got enrolled at the nursing school.

In 1988, I entered the nursing school, and then in 1990, when I was in the 00:05:00senior class awaiting graduation, we had the war in Liberia. So we all fled, the dormitory. We were called back in 1992, and then we graduated. So I graduated as a nurse, and since then, I've been working with the government. I started working with the government; I work in many clinics; I work in hospitals in parts of Liberia--Kolahun, for example, on the general ward, taking care of patients. And then the war came in 1993. We then fled again, went to Guinea, came back to Liberia in 1994, started working with Medecins Sans Frontieres. Medecins Sans Frontieres is a nongovernmental organization that is mainly 00:06:00focused on emergencies. Since we couldn't practice regular nursing activities, we were then involved in emergency. I worked with Medecins Sans Frontieres from that point up to 2001, and then I had the opportunity to go as an expatriate. I worked in Tanzania, I work in Malawi, I worked in Zimbabwe, I also worked in Kenya, I worked in parts of Uganda, I worked in part of Ethiopia. After several years with MSF, they then sponsor me to go to do my master's [degree] at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, where I did a master's in health system 00:07:00management and policy, at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, Antwerp. I finished in 2014.

As soon as I came back, that was the peak of the Ebola, and then I started working immediately with Medecins Sans Frontieres, first with the Ministry of Health, where I was the dead body management coordinator. The "dead body management coordinator" means--at that time, people were dying in the streets of Monrovia and bodies were being left in the street and so forth. The Ministry decided that look, we need to pick up these bodies from the street, because it wasn't good for the public. Probably a source of the spread of the virus. I was coordinating that from the Ministry perspective. I was brought in by Dr. 00:08:00Massaquoi, Moses Massaquoi, who is now the Clinton Foundation country representative. He is the country case management chair. Everything that has to do with Ebola in the country, he is the chair for that, case management from the clinical perspective. Then, I was involved with the street-to-street picking up of dead bodies. At that time, the Ministry had no appropriate transport system to pick up the dead bodies. So I worked closely with Tolbert [G.] Nyenswah, who is now the chairman for the EOC [emergency operations center], and fortunately, Tolbert Nyenswah gave an order to pick up two trucks that we started with, 00:09:00picking up bodies from the street.

That's my personal experience with that. I didn't go to the clinic, I was with the Ministry of Health picking up dead bodies from the street. I worked alongside with the Red Cross, representing the Ministry. And then, when people were being cremated--before people were being cremated, we were doing mass burial. I was on the first team with Tolbert Nyenswah that went to Johnsonville to do the mass burial. Then, some things happened wrongly there, and the government decided that instead of mass burial we should go for cremation. And so bodies were being cremated.

Q: Can I ask a clarify question? When you say you were doing the 00:10:00street-to-street body removal, does that mean that you physically were participating and picking up bodies?

KOLLIE: I was physically participating in picking up bodies with a team, with a team, a group of guys, myself. We were involved in picking up bodies. When people would die in churches, we were sent there to go to the churches and pick up the body. We had a team, and I was part of that team.

Q: Was there one time where you went to pick up a body that stands out in your memory especially, maybe your first time, I don't know?

KOLLIE: Well, the thing is, there were multiple experiences that we had. For example, in the Jallah Town area, we went to pick up a body in a house where seven persons were sitting, but they were all dead. But you could see that they 00:11:00were in a meeting, and it was strange that all of them were sick in a house and nobody would even dare to leave their house to go outside. All seven were seated in their dying position. You could see that these people were either in a meeting, or they were gathering or something. Because everyone was sitting, and they were all dead, but you could see that they were sitting. So probably they were in a meeting. I remember that very well. Why? I don't know, maybe it was because of the fear at the time that was associated with being known of having Ebola, or just being sick at the time wasn't something--people didn't care to come outside. So we went through that. But yes, I was involved in physically taking bodies from the street.

Q: Wow. So you were dressed in the full personal protective equipment?

KOLLIE: No. At that time, in fact, when we started, we didn't have sufficient personal protective equipment. Some of us are just fortunate to be alive because we went to places with just gloves, and not the very strong ones. Some of the gloves, they could tear apart in a few seconds. By the time you apply pressure in holding some bodies, some of the gloves could tear apart. Probably some of the reason why some of our colleagues died. But yeah, we were involved in that.

Q: Can you tell me about the process with which you would take a body and take it away, like the actual--what you did with the bodies?

KOLLIE: Well, at the time, we didn't have all the equipment that we needed. For 00:13:00example, we didn't have the body bags, we didn't have the proper personal equipment, we were using aprons just for the, you know--and then we had masks, yes, we had masks. But we didn't have our full bodies covered. We went there and the guys from the environmental health department, they would disinfect the body, and from their understanding, that was the appropriate disinfection that they could do. Once that was done, we would use plastic, ordinary plastic, and then put the body in. Of course, these things improved over time because then we have the body bag, we had personal protective equipment, but that came after, yeah, that came after.

Q: I know you're a medical professional and you have seen a lot, of course, but can you describe how this particular job, this body removal, impacted you?

KOLLIE: Well, you see, whenever I did this, there wasn't much knowledge we had at the time about Ebola. There wasn't much knowledge we had at the time. The message at that time was when you get Ebola you die. There wasn't much education. It was just some risk that we took. After being involved in this, at some point, I was thinking if I was really alive. Because some of the things that I did were equivalent to contracting the virus. Fortunately, that didn't 00:15:00happen, and it happened to other people. So I wouldn't--even to the present, sometimes when I think back, I'm like, did I really do this? Did I really get involved? Did I really play a role? Did I go to the mass burial site?

Q: Thank you for describing that. How did families of the people you picked up react to you when you came to take the bodies?

KOLLIE: I have a video on my computer, I can share that video with you. We went to a community in Johnsonville to convince the people about the burial because people were also dying in that community. In fact, the initial--and this is not 00:16:00a secret--people felt that the Ministry of Health was just doing this to get money. This is an old story. Nobody wanted you to talk to them about how they care for their relatives. They had their culture, they want to practice it, even though people were dying from it, but they felt that it wasn't real. If you went to pick up a body, if you are not very fortunate to meet with the right family, you could be rejected. You could be told not to touch their body. So, many of these things, not only to me but to other people as well.

Q: I'm sorry, I got us focused on this thing. You were describing the process of moving toward cremation, how there was a massive burial that didn't go well. I 00:17:00think maybe that was the incident where the bodies floated to the top of the--

KOLLIE: Yeah, I have that video with me. I can show you.

Q: You have video of that incident?

KOLLIE: I took a video at the time because I was there and I was involved in the process. I can share the video with you of the mass burial and what happened at the mass burial site. That video, I think other people took clips as well, and so maybe it went viral and the community actually rose up and said look, it's not possible to have this body buried in our community. Especially leaving the bodies floating. It was rainy season, so you have water everywhere, and we went to do the burial in the swamp, close to the swamp. The yellow machine could not dig any further, and you get to the water, but still the bodies had to be dumped 00:18:00in there. And even if you covered them, the water will bring them out. I will show you the video, you see them.

Q: Yeah, that would be wonderful. What happened from there?

KOLLIE: From there, the radio programs, people went on the radio calling on the government that this thing they were doing was exposing the population at risk of further epidemics, maybe it could be another disease that would come and other things. Then they started to resist us from entering the community. That was when the government decided, okay, then we go for cremation. So they started cremating.

Q: What part did you play in that process?

KOLLIE: At that point of cremation, I was now with MSF at that point, I wasn't with the Ministry anymore. I was with MSF. I was then engaged in community 00:19:00education. We started the first community outreach program with Dr. Fallah, Dr. Mosoka [P.] Fallah, myself, and other colleagues. We trained hundreds of community dwellers on Ebola prevention with MSF, funding from MSF as well. We trained them; we then hired community volunteers who would then be continuously going to the communities to be able to continuously send messages to the community about Ebola. We developed messages in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. Yes, so I wasn't then involved anymore with the cremation. The cremation was then taken over by the Ministry of Health completely, but I wasn't 00:20:00with the Ministry at that point. After the mass burial, I wasn't with the Ministry.

Q: When you were doing this community education, were you coordinating or were you actually out in communities doing that outreach?

KOLLIE: I entered with MSF responsible for the Community Outreach Program. I was involved with the Community Outreach Program. We went from community to community, mobilized people, put them together. We provided lunch, and we had education provided to them. We trained people to be able to also carry on in other communities. Initially, I started with the team, but then I passed on the knowledge, and then people were going to different communities providing the education.

Q: Is there a specific community that you remember educating, looking back?

KOLLIE: A specific community would be the New Georgia community. It's an [unclear] area where--people in the [unclear] thought also where health workers are entering, they were the ones actually that were bringing the virus. At that point, some people were listening to their leaders on what they should do about health workers coming to do education. People didn't believe what people were saying. So it was difficult to really enter some of the communities, especially for the New Georgia community. The rest was easy because then Ebola was actually 00:22:00killing people. I remember one community also was West Point community. When I entered the West Point community, there was a representative that was about to leave that community, and the citizens there said the representative cannot leave the community. There was a fight between the community dwellers and the police force. Case in time, one boy was shot and killed. I was the medic, if we go back to the video, I was the medic taking care of that boy who was wounded. I was the medic working with MSF at the time, taking care of that boy.

Q: The boy who ended up passing away?

KOLLIE: Yeah, he ended up passing away. I mean, complete fracture. He was 00:23:00bleeding severely, very much, and it took a long time to get him out of the place.

Q: Where was he bleeding from?

KOLLIE: From the leg. Yes, he was bleeding from the leg severely. His leg was almost cut off by the bullet. We tried to immobilize it and tried to stop the bleeding, but you can't easily stop such a severe wound bleeding just by immobilization, by tying; you need surgical procedure to grasp the vessels that are being torn apart. But we didn't have the means to do that at that point. They took him to the hospital, he ended up dying. It's also on YouTube, that video clip of a dead boy is on YouTube, how he died and everything.

Q: What happened then with you?

KOLLIE: Then I stayed with MSF until MSF was about to close, and then WHO picked me up and that's how I started with WHO.

Q: And then what happened?

KOLLIE: When I moved to WHO, the movement, then I started as a focal person for the training team. We trained internationals and nationals on Ebola management. I played both the administrative, financial, in fact operational role there. We went in parts of the country, Lofa [County] and other places, we trained 00:25:00healthcare workers on how to prevent and manage Ebola. The post that I stayed in until the training was over and then WHO assigned me to the Men's Health Screening Program, where I am currently.

Q: What did you think of the Men's Health Screening Program at the beginning? What did you know going into the project?

KOLLIE: I knew nothing, to be frank with you. I really knew nothing going into the project. I relied a lot on the CDC technical experts who came with the background on how to do this. In fact, at the beginning, I was just with Mary [J. Choi] and her colleagues, advising them on how you go about--from the 00:26:00government part, how you work along with the government, the human resource aspect. From the beginning, that's all I could do. I didn't have any idea on how the Men's Health Screening Program operates.

We got into it and we started to learn. Thank God to Mary and her team that has been coming and going. We had Neetu [S. Abad] from Sierra Leone coming and providing counseling training, which today has become the cornerstone for the Men's Health Screening Program. If you look at our database, we have a very small loss to follow-up. Our returns and our graduates, a lot of people have graduated from the program, which also tells us people do understand that they have to come back. They are getting the messages from the counselors. The 00:27:00counselors are doing very well. If you don't get the appropriate messages, it's difficult for them to come back because they don't understand what you're saying. They will come for the first time, but to come back for the second time means they really understood what you explained to them. That's a very strong point of the Men's Health Screening Program. People are understanding Ebola. People are getting to know what you can do for yourself and what you can do to help your communities, your families, through the Men's Health Screening Program.

We didn't know. All we knew was that after three tests, while you are admitted--when you are discharged, it's done. Through the Men's Health Screening Program, we see that something else is happening. That surveillance, I call it, component of this whole public health approach is something new to me and 00:28:00something I'm learning from. We hope the case coming in again would tell us something new, hopefully. That's so far. But I came into the Men's Health Screening Program with no knowledge. No knowledge at all what to do, how to do what, but thank God for the expertise from the CDC.

Q: Can you tell me more about that process of getting up to speed? Of maybe meeting Mary for the first time.

KOLLIE: When someone has a clear vision, when they want to start something, it serves as a breakthrough for any project. Mary, on the first time I saw her, 00:29:00appeared to be someone who had a clear vision of what she wanted to do with the team that she brought. That vision that she had helped us to speak out at the governmental level, community level, or other agency level on what the Men's Health Screening Program was all about.

Now, remember that the Men's Health Screening Program was starting at a time also when another organization sponsored by the United States government called PREVAIL [Partnership for Research on Ebola Virus in Liberia] was also starting. It became a big battle between PREVAIL and the Men's Health Screening Program. It became a battle because it appeared as if PREVAIL did not want the Men's Health Screening Program to exist. But they were doing different things totally, 00:30:00and the Men's Health Screening Program is doing something different. But I think--I don't understand for some reasons, the way they portray themselves, the way they behave. I'll tell you one example. A lady called Libby, I think she's with PREVAIL, one of the top notches around there. She came here just to have a chat with us. There was a CDC guy here called Gibril [Njie]. Gibril was here then. Two of us went to the meeting with Libby and other colleagues that Libby brought. In that meeting, after explaining everything about the Men's Health Screening Program--in fact, when Gibril was doing the presentation about the Men's Health Screening Program, Libby was like, "No, we don't have time, we have to go fast." So I think Gibril at some point had to cut the presentation short. 00:31:00In the end, Libby clearly said we were doing nothing. Yes. I mean, we were doing nothing, our results were not valid, sufficient enough to--our results were not valid to be able to tell participants that they were negative or they were positive. That was demoralizing for us. It was like, to hell with the Men's Health Screening Program. You're doing nothing. I wrote an email to Mary about that. I didn't feel comfortable with those approaches that she had. Then we also talked to PREVAIL, look, we're willing to work with you, we want to share information, we want to collaborate with you. But PREVAIL in return was always 00:32:00reluctant in collaborating with us. Whenever they wanted us to do something, we were willing to do it, but when we want them to do something, they don't do it. A case in time is we have participants that are consistently positive in our program. PREVAIL wants to have those participants. They brought forms for us to distribute to those participants. We have no problem, we will give the form to the participants, but they have the choice to enter the PREVAIL program. We can't force them. We give the form to the participants, that's how far we can go. It's the choice of the participants to go to PREVAIL. We're giving feedback to PREVAIL that these participants are not accepting the forms that we are giving them. They have never come back to us to see how we move forward with this. And then some other things we want to do, sometimes they don't seem to be 00:33:00working well with us.

But also, if you look at the money that PREVAIL is paying their staff and the money that we are paying our staff. For example, a counselor in PREVAIL is earning two thousand dollars US, while a counselor in the Men's Health Screening Program is earning six hundred dollars. Five, six hundred dollars. But our staff commitment has been the strength of the program. They are extremely committed. They know the salary scales of the PREVAIL staff, and they know that they are making far less than what PREVAIL staff is doing. But they are so committed, and 00:34:00that's something I cannot imagine because PREVAIL is just our next door neighbor and they are here. That difference could even bring up some dissatisfaction amongst our staff. But nothing like that. Everything is going fine. It's all about how the vision from Mary was brought. It's not about the money, it's about how you sell the program for people to understand what the program is about. And the importance of the program. Once people grasp that, I think they are willing to work with it, and that's what the staff here are doing.

Q: It sounds like Mary was very focused on that central idea.

KOLLIE: Exactly. Trying to make sure that--money is one thing, but try to see for your own benefit, for the benefit of your family, for the benefit of the 00:35:00public, what this program is going to do for you. That is the key point that is in our heads. I've had offers also to go to PREVAIL. I've had offers to go to PREVAIL for a good salary. But I think there's a big difference between what PREVAIL is doing and what we are doing. I'd rather stay with the Men's Health Screening Program.

Q: One thing that struck me when you talked was you said that what really strikes you is the staff commitment to this project. Can you give me an example?

KOLLIE: The counselors, for example. We see a lot of patients than PREVAIL, we have a lot of participants in our program. I mean we've gotten seven, eight 00:36:00hundred people that we've seen, and those people have been counseled only by the handful of counselors that we have. Compare that to PREVAIL that have seen maybe less than three hundred or four hundred with tons of counselors. If you look at the work that they are doing compared to the work that the counselors at PREVAIL are doing, and see their commitment to duty. One, they are here very early in the morning, eight o' clock; they are the last to leave from here; they still write their report. There are no complaints about why the salary is not sufficient and so forth. They come up with suggestions on how we improve the program.

Q: Do you remember someone giving one of those suggestions?

KOLLIE: For example, if a participant is not eligible for enrollment, let's say a participant comes in and is not eligible for the program, how do we identify that person? They come up with strategies on how to identify a non-eligible candidate. They come with a series of questions. For example, when you got sick, where you got sick, where you got treated. Is anyone in your community who knows about how you got sick, or who saw you when you were sick? And if they say yes, they will ask, do you have a telephone number, do you know anyone in your community that knows that you are sick? If you say yes, they will definitely 00:38:00call that person. And in many instances, they have taken out people who are not eligible for the program, people who just came to get the money. If they were not committed, they connive with these people, get the money, and get a share because it's twenty-five US dollars. Depending on where you come from, you can take up to forty US dollars for spending a few minutes with the counselors; ten, fifteen minutes, you get forty US dollars. If they were not committed, they would have recruited those people and connived with them and gotten a share of that money, and then we would've had too many of those people in the program. I think as a way of topping off their salaries, they would've done that. You get the point. But they don't do that. For me, that is a very high level of 00:39:00commitment. We give them the money to pay the participants, you see. We don't have a pay master who comes and everything. They have the means to do that, they have the possibility to do that. They are taking less money compared to their other colleagues. But they still deny--not deny, they still do the right thing by not allowing people who are not eligible to enroll in the program. Because some people know that we are giving ten dollars or fifteen dollars or twenty dollars, so they want to come for the money. If they come for the money, if our counselors are not trained enough and committed to the program--they may be trained, but if they are not committed to the program, these people would be recruited and they would get part of the money. So at the end of the day, the counselors would be going home with maybe twenty-five, fifty dollars extra in their pockets. And if you put that twenty-five, fifty dollars together over a period of one month, they are almost close to the salary of the other people. 00:40:00That is where I am judging their commitment.

Q: Can you describe just one of the counselors, who they are as a person, something you remember about them.

KOLLIE: I want to talk about Mylene, Mylene Faikai. This office by design of the program is supposed to have an office manager, and the office manager would be responsible for the day-to-day office operation of the program. Mylene is trained as a counselor and a mental health clinician. She is not only counseling, but she's also looking at the mental health aspect. On top of what she's doing, she has taken some of the burdens from me by being responsible for 00:41:00the office management. The day-to-day operation of the office, Mylene does it a lot. So I give money to Mylene, which I shouldn't do by my organization policy, but I trust her and she's been very trustworthy over a period of time. So I got no problem with her. And all of the participants that she's met--I think Denise did an interview with some of the participants. The results also show that these people are doing some great jobs here. If we refer to that, you can then imagine what I'm talking about, about the counselors. Mylene is a special counselor in my opinion because she goes beyond the counseling. She is making sure that the office is not a problem on a day-to-day basis. When I'm absent, I rely on 00:42:00Mylene, and even in cases, Mary as well relies on Mylene.

Q: Can you describe one of the challenges maybe that you have not described very much thus far? Just pick one and how you got through it.

KOLLIE: Let's look at the integration of the Men's Health Screening Program into the Ministry of Health ongoing programs. You have this program--this is our office, you can see how the office looks.

Q: We're in a small office, there are boxes up to the ceiling.

KOLLIE: Yeah. It's like a warehouse, but it's an office. This is what the Ministry could afford to offer us. The fear was--not fear, but the thing is if 00:43:00you put this program outside of the Ministry of Health, Mylene, that I'm talking about today, wouldn't benefit because Mylene is a staff of the Ministry of Health. The other counselors are also working with the Ministry of Health. Now, getting the appropriate space was a challenge. Unlike PREVAIL, that just came with huge money and took the entire wing of the hospital, spent thousands of dollars, yes. But if the Men's Health Screening Program goes today, the Ministry has capacity already within their system that would take some component of the Men's Health Screening Program, specifically the counseling. So the challenge of integrating this program into the Ministry of Health was that, the space problem. People had to be moved from here to go to different rooms, 00:44:00dissatisfied. That's a lot of service that you are denying other populations from. People were having this part of the building, but you want it to be part of the Ministry's effort. So we had to push to make sure that the Ministry understands what the Men's Health Screening Program is about. Fortunately, they offered this place to us. Now, our semen collections room is outside this place. It's not the ideal place, but if you look at the results we are getting from what we have, it's amazing. It's so encouraging. Then, you don't look at this space anymore as a messy place. You look at it like, oh, you mean out of this place comes this thing? The space for putting the Men's Health Screening Program 00:45:00was a huge challenge in the beginning. We managed to talk to authorities of the Ministry, they help us to get this space.

Q: You know what would be really useful, is if you could just describe Redemption Hospital just a little bit.

KOLLIE: Redemption Hospital is a public hospital. Services here are free of charge. No one pays anything for any service here. And it's one of the--in fact, it's the busiest hospital in the Republic of Liberia, the busiest. It is located in New Kru Town, with a huge population; I can't imagine, I don't have it on hand. But on a daily basis, each of the clinicians here see more than fifty 00:46:00patients. On a daily basis, they see more than fifty patients. So that tells you how busy this place is, and you can get almost all of the services: pediatric, OB/GYN [obstetrics and gynecology], surgical, adult. Just the general healthcare for the population. They also have x-ray services, they run a TB [tuberculosis] program. It's a very busy hospital. Very, very busy. I can only describe it in terms of how busy they are. Very busy. If you see the hallway to our doors, all those people are patients sitting to be seen. They are not coming into a room, but they had to sit there because they still have to see other clinicians. So I 00:47:00can only describe it in terms of how busy it is. And the way it's structured, it wasn't built to accommodate this number. Medecins Sans Frontieres came in and did an expansion, this part of the hospital, and it's expanding and expanding and expanding to the point that they can expand no more. No more land space. But the population is not reducing, it's increasing.

Q: I appreciate that. What does it feel like to be here on a daily basis?

KOLLIE: I think for the first time, initially, like I said, we didn't understand some things. But when we started getting some results from the publication--

Q: Sorry, tell me about those results.

KOLLIE: For example, the difference, why you have persistence of the virus in some people and not other people. One of the results that came out shows that age is a factor. The younger people in our programs tend to get rid of the virus as compared to the older people. That's an encouraging result that we got. It kind of like, gave you a boost, energy, like oh, okay, what I'm doing is also getting some messages out there. In the event that there's an outbreak, people will try to give some special attention to the older people because it's proven 00:49:00from here that they are the ones persistently having the virus in them.

Being here on a day-to-day basis, it's like going to a safari park. You want to see the lion, you want to see the cheetah, you want to see the gorillas, so many things every day you want to see. Every day you want to see something. On a day-to-day basis, this is something you wish, what is it today that we're going to know, what is it today that we're going to know? [laughter]

Q: Can you tell me about your every day? Like, what is a typical day here for you like? What do you do?

KOLLIE: When I come here, the first thing is to ensure that every staff has set 00:50:00a goal for the day. But not only that you're setting a goal for today, you also have to tell us what you achieved yesterday. Then if you tell us what you achieved yesterday, you tell us what you are doing today, the next day, it is my responsibility to follow up with you to know how far you went with what you plan to do for the past day. Also, we have some link with the Ministry of Health. There can be some concern raised from the Ministry of Health about the program. In consultation with Mary, we do address those concerns. There can be also human resource problems in the program. I'm also responsible for that. There can be 00:51:00financial aspects of the program, the day-to-day payment of participants' money to them. I'm also responsible for that. I draw up the monthly budget for the program and submit to WHO and follow it up with WHO to make sure funding is available for salaries and for operations. That includes stationary, other office materials that we need: water, biscuits, other stuff in the office, air condition repair, the cartridge for the photocopy. On a day-to-day, I'm involved in that.

Q: Thank you. Is there anything that I haven't asked about, any aspect of the 00:52:00program that you would like to share with me?

KOLLIE: I'm very sure something will come to my mind.

Q: [laughter] Well, I'm here all day.

KOLLIE: I'm very sure something will come to my mind.

Q: Or any specific memory that you have that especially when you look back stands with you, that you can almost live it again in your mind?

KOLLIE: Even if I'm not a part of the Men's Health Screening Program, I wish authorities would see the importance of this program and let it continue. I think for me, that's the only important message that I have. I know sometimes 00:53:00there might not be sufficient reasons to continue, but the smallest reasons should be considered because this is a very huge surveillance program. It's a study, but it's finding out a lot of things that tells me there's a need to continue with the program. Again, it's not in my control, I'm not a part of that, but the decision makers should see reason to have this program continuing. Even at the very minimum scale. They shouldn't close the program down totally. If it's just five, six persons, to just keep some eyes on something going, they 00:54:00should try to think about that. I know we have a huge staff component today and it's also financially a burden, but you have to think from a public health perspective and not just from the financial part and try to find somehow money somewhere to let the program keep going.

[break]

Q: I just want to thank you Mr. Jomah Kollie. It's been great listening to you. Thank you.

KOLLIE: Thank you very much, Sam, it was also a pleasure talking to you. I mean, this is in my opinion just a little part of the experiences that many people also had about the Ebola crisis in Liberia. I can tell you there are people who have had worse experience than I had.

Q: Thank you very much.

KOLLIE: Thank you.

END