FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
…Flagship donation sets the stage for the Strengthening Families Conference 2026, which opens Friday in Monrovia
PAYNESVILLE, Montserrado County — Government and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officials broke ground Thursday for a new maternity hospital at Duport Road that backers say will deliver safer childbirth to one of Greater Monrovia’s fastest-growing communities and ease the strain on the country’s overwhelmed referral hospitals.
The facility, a co-funded partnership between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Ministry of Health, is planned with more than 100 beds, a neonatal intensive care unit, delivery suites, laboratories and operating theatres, according to remarks delivered at the ceremony. It will rise on the site of the existing Duport Road Health Center, a clinic that has grown into a full health center serving a catchment population that officials placed in the tens of thousands, with health workers reporting more than 200 deliveries a month.
The groundbreaking stands as the church’s flagship donation in a week it has built around family and community welfare, landing a day before it convenes the Strengthening Families Conference 2026 in Monrovia. Church leaders framed the hospital as the major humanitarian gift preceding the conference, a concrete expression of the gathering’s central message that strong families anchor national development.
The conference, the eighth edition of the church’s annual interfaith event, opens Friday and runs through Saturday at the EJS Exhibition Complex in Monrovia. Liberia is hosting for the first time, having received the torch from Sierra Leone, which staged the 2025 edition in Freetown after earlier conferences in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Organizers describe the free, two-day program as a platform for religious communities, civil society organizations, traditional leaders and government officials to explore ways of strengthening families as the foundation of a stable and prosperous nation.
The Inter-Religious Council of Liberia has endorsed the gathering, saying its review found the event is not tied to the doctrine of any single faith and is instead built around family, culture, health and social development. The council said it had been invited to contribute educational content to the program.
First Lady Kartumu Y. Boakai, the government’s Maternal and Neonatal Health Champion, anchored the program and cast the event as the harvest of a seed she planted early in her tenure. “Today transcends a groundbreaking ceremony,” she told the gathering. She recalled visiting the Duport Road clinic, near a community where she once lived, and challenging her office to act after she found conditions there wanting.
“What once represented hope is now becoming a symbol of transformation,” the First Lady said. “True faith gives. True faith builds. True faith transforms.” She framed the project as an investment in the nation’s future, telling the crowd that “when we invest in maternal health care, we are strengthening the future of our nation.”
Mrs. Boakai closed with a benediction for the facility. “May this hospital stand as a beacon of healing. May every mother who enters its doors find safety,” she said. “Today we break ground, tomorrow we save lives, and for generations to come Liberia will reap the harvest of what is being planted. Because others care, we will get a better beginning.”
The hospital is one piece of a broader development push by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rep. James Kolleh of Bong County’s District 2, who said he helped connect the church to the Office of the President after its leaders met President Joseph Boakai in February 2024, told the ceremony the church is financing eight projects nationwide. “We have one hospital, three clinics, along with four schools from this church,” Kolleh said, describing the package as a major contribution to the country’s infrastructure.
Montserrado County Superintendent Rory Bryant said church members had raised more than $100,000 in offerings toward the work, calling the partnership proof that the church matched faith with action. He praised the Health Ministry’s responsiveness and tied the project to a wider government drive to rebuild clinics and hospitals across the county.Elder Adeyinka A. Ojediran, a General Authority Seventy and member of the Africa West Area Presidency of the church, said the partnership reflected the institution’s humanitarian mission and the contributions of ordinary members. “Today we break ground, but more importantly, we plant hope,” he said. He stressed that access to quality health care “is not a privilege” but fundamental to dignity and progress, and he appealed to residents to protect the structure during construction and maintain it once completed. The contractor, Echo Smart Builders International, was recognized at the program.
Health Minister Dr. Louise Kpoto, an obstetrician-gynecologist, called the hospital the project she most wants to see finished before leaving office. “If there is one project that I could complete before my tenure is over, this Duport Road Maternal Center should be that project,” Kpoto said. She tied the facility to the ministry’s 365-day initiative to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths and credited the First Lady with first raising the alarm about the Duport Road center and refurbishing it.
Senior Presidential Advisor Prof. Dr. Augustine Konneh, representing President Boakai, said the groundbreaking marked a milestone in the country’s health care transformation and described maternal and newborn protection as “a governance imperative, a moral duty.” He thanked the church and the Health Ministry for what he called genuine partnership.
The case for the hospital is rooted in hard numbers. Liberia carries one of the world’s higher maternal mortality burdens, and officials at the ceremony pointed to delays in reaching and receiving care as a driver of preventable deaths. The Duport Road facility, speakers said, is designed to relieve the John F. Kennedy Medical Center and Redemption Hospital, both of which are routinely overstretched by patient loads referred from surrounding communities.
The House Committee on Health chair, Hon. Julie Fatorma Wiah, and community chairman Jimmy Wisseh also welcomed the project, with Wisseh telling officials the community had long pressed for a hospital. After the formal remarks, dignitaries moved to the site to turn the soil.
