UPDATE: Dr. Jallah is no longer at JFK Hospital in Monrovia – she works full time with the organization she founded, Hope for Women International, where she supports cancer patients and administers chemotherapy.
Dr. Wilhelmina Jallah is a champion of women’s healthcare in Liberia. As the head of obstetrics and gynecology at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia, she has a busy schedule in prenatal care, emergency obstetrics, and gynecology. In her day-to-day work Dr. Jallah provides medical services to young survivors of rape, many of whom require fistula repair surgery.
Dr. Jallah explained to The Guardian Weekly, “Firstly many women were raped or injured during the war and then received no proper treatment, which can have very bad knock-on health effects…but then on top of this you have all the problems ordinary people are facing such as no food, no shelter, no money, and this is all part of why so many women are still dying.”
The tragic story of one of Dr. Jallah’s patients, Olivia Zinnah, has recently received international attention. Olivia died at age 13 from injuries resulting from a brutal rape she survived when she was only seven years old. Her story will be told in the upcoming documentary Small Small Thing.
In addition her duties at the hospital, Dr. Jallah works in health education to increase breast cancer and cervical cancer awareness in Liberia. She is founder and Medical Director at Hope for Women International, an organization supporting women diagnosed with cancer. Her passion and dedication even led to the rebirth of the Liberian Cancer Society.
Dr. Jallah inspires hope as she works with women and girls in Liberia to reconstruct and rehabilitate their bodies and their entire lives.
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Olivia Zinna, Subject of a Child Rape Documentary, Dead at 13, Ebony, 14 January 2013.