Projects

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The current Eye Hospital is in the process of being renovated into a Surgery  and Orthopedic Trauma Center giving the SDA Cooper Hospital an upgraded three Operating Theaters, a modern Emergency Room with three trauma bays and a 24 bed post-operative recovery ward.  The Eye Hospital was built in the early 1980s about two city blocks from the main SDA Cooper Hospital campus and hasn't had any maintenance or improvements to the infrastructures since.  The sheet metal roof is rusty and leaking and the ceiling is of course ruined as a result.  Also, the 24 bed inpatient ward has never been used since ophthalmology only does outpatient procedures.  The current operating theater is way oversized and could easily contain three theaters with plenty of room for storage if repurposed.  Also, the outpatient rooms are oversized and the whole building could be fairly easily repurposed into an Emergency Room with three trauma bays and eight other examination rooms as well as a waiting room, pharmacy, phlebotomy, x-ray, casting room, doctor's office and storage.

The Cooper Clinic was founded in the 1960's by Dr. Henry Nehemiah Cooper, MD. Dr. Cooper was a resident surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and Chief Medical Officer at the JFK Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia. He was a founding member of the Liberian Medical Association, the Liberian Cancer Society and the West African College of Surgeons. Dr. Cooper died at the Cooper Clinic in 1984. The Cooper family then sold the clinic to the Seventh-day Adventist Church with the stipulation that the Hospital retain the name Cooper. Thus, the current name of the institution: the SDA Cooper Hospital.  SDA Cooper was one of the few hospitals to remain open during the entire time period of the two Liberian Civil Wars. The Hospital was also one of only two hospitals (the other being ELWA Hospital) to remain open during the height of the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2015.  Some board members called for a demolition or selling of the hospital, but engineers found that the infrastructure (the "bones") of the hospital was still very solid. However, the years and the harsh Liberian climate (salt breezes from the nearby ocean and torrential rains) have taken their toll on the roof, paint and external surfaces.  Over the years, as technology has advanced, the electrical and plumbing systems, rather than being overhauled, have just been added onto in a haphazard manner. This has left the current electrical and plumbing situation sketchy at best and more likely hazardous.  Fires have actually broken out in several sections due to the faulty wiring and lack of safety elements like appropriate switches, breakers, fuses and grounding.  In other words, serious renovation needs to be done if the hospital will be able to continue to render its valuable services to the Monrovia community.  A strategic plan has been developed with an American architect to not only renovate, but repurpose the existing structure to create a larger hospital complex involving the two campuses: the current Cooper Clinic and the Eye Hospital (see blueprints above and below).