Malaria and how it affects productivity

By Farzana Rasheed

One of my staff reported sick this morning, complaining of suffering from shivering and cold. Nickson was coming down with it since yesterday. It is definitely malaria. One of my other staff, Tauseef, also has been complaining of malaria-like symptoms.

I could possibly lose half of my technical team to malaria for 2-3 working days or more. It will seriously impact my day to day business.

I wonder to what degree the incidence of malaria affects other businesses and organisations here in Liberia, what medical plans they have, and how do they absorb lost productivity?

Targeting, treating and protection from malaria is a huge concern for international development agencies. In fact, one of the diseases Global Fund fights is malaria (the other two are tuberculosis and AIDS). 

Here are some numbers on malaria:

• Over half a million (655, 000) people die from malaria each year, mostly children younger than five years old. 
• There are an estimated 216 million cases of malaria each year. 
• Although the vast majority of malaria cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is a public-health problem in more than 109 countries in the world, 45 of which are in Africa. 
• Approximately 3.3 billion people live in areas where malaria is a constant threat. 
• 90% of all malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. 
• Malaria costs an estimated $12 billion in lost productivity in Africa. 
• When insecticide-treated nets are used properly by three-quarters of the people in a community, malaria transmission is cut by 50%, child deaths are cut by 20%, and the mosquito population drops by as much as 90%. 
• It is estimated that less than 5% of children in sub-Saharan Africa currently sleep under any type of insecticide-treated net.

I got these statistics from Nets for Life.

So, as an employer, what can I do help my employees? Well, I only have a half-baked policy and system in place but need to get my act together. One of my colleagues here in the business sector in Liberia shared with me their policy: all their staff can access good, reliable healthcare at the SOS Clinic 

in Congo Town. The staff can take sick days if they have a doctor's OK from this particular clinic.

I need to set up a similar arrangement so my staff can access a doctor when sick and, have some or all their bills paid by the company.

I was also thinking of making a treated net and a supply of mosquito coils part of the salary package. I am sure it would reduce the amount of times my staff gets malaria.

Speaking of mosquito coils, I remember an electrician's quip when he was installing some light fixtures at my house once: "The mosquitos in our community can come to rest on the coils." I love the Liberian sense of humour!

What to expect whilst servicing a Printer!

What to Expect Whilst Servicing a Printer!

By Haresh Karamchandani

We have maintenance contracts with various clients and sometimes you just cant imagine what state the printers can be in until you actually begin maintenance and open up the machine.

Here are some amazing pictures of recently maintained printers:

This is an HP M4555 Multi-Function Printer. Looks like it has not been maintained or serviced for a very long time. The client reported that the printer was not working and we opened it up to check what may be the issue. This is what we saw!!

Leaked out toner powder inside a printer. The toner was checked and found to be fake!!

A typical fake HP Toner! Notice there is no HP Logo on this toner. 

Some jobs I did

By Tauseef Ahmad

It's been a few months since I've been at NATC and would like to share some of the jobs I've been involved in:

Fake toner cartridges

On a rainy day, we went to site diagnose a faulty HP CP 2025, a laser printer, which was not printing clearly i.e. it had smudge marks. Nickson and I arrived on site and to find that the printer was very dusty and needed to be serviced. We separately serviced each part i.e. the scanning unit, fuser unite, and image transfer belt. This immediately resulted in better print outs. However, there was still a yellow smudge. Further checks revealed that there were fake toner cartridges in the printer. Fake toner cartidges often start leaking ink and can damage the image transfer belt. We were on site for 2 hours.

Relocating an intercom

We received a call from one of our new clients: one of the intercom telephone extension was not working as the cable connection was faulty and may have broken somewhere. The only way to resolve this problem was to replace the cable completely from the PABX unit to the wall outlet of the user.

We decided that instead of running a long cable all the way from the user’s desk to the PABX room which would have to be done externally it would be more neat to extend a cable from the conference room located very close to the user.  

Then our first target was to test and get the conference room line activated. We checked one by one the connection with the PABX and at last we have a tone in our conference room telephone.

Then we ran a Cat6 cable to connect from the conference room line to Desk 6 where we needed to activate the connection. We installed the cable neatly and made a new wall connection for the user on Desk No. 6. The phone is working now.

The user was allocated the exact same original extension number.

Daniel gets a new laptop!

We recently received a 'condemned' laptop from our US office. Since diagnosis fees can be higher in the US, our colleague told us the laptop was ours in case we could diagnose and repair it! The plan was to repair the laptop for our trainee, Daniel. I turned on the laptop but the internal and external screens didn't come on. I checked the parts and found a faulty IC in the VGA section. Luckily, I could harvest this part from one of our motherboards. I replaced the faulty IC and the laptop came on! It was as good as new and, now Daniel has his own work station!

Downgrading the OS

We were to supply a new Lenovo H505S desktop to one of our clients that came pre-loaded with Windows 8. however the client requested Windows 7. I was stuck - how would I boot from the CD-ROM? After some trouble shooting, I found that the exact location in bios from where to change the boot options. We ran Windows 7 Ultimate but we needed to also install the system's drivers. We had to download them. The VGA driver was 172 MB and the audio one was 140 MB. We downloaded and installed all of them. We also installed Office 2010.

After all the work we did and delivered the desktop, the next morning, the client told us that they need at least a 2 Ghz processor to run their accounting software.

OMG!

We repeated the whole process with a new desktop with a 2.5 Ghz processor!

It's the fuser!

We received a call about a faulty Canon LR 2018 Printer which was not printing. The error code was 007 which is a fuser issue. I found that the fuser film and element were burnt. I replaced the parts and the printer was printing normally!

Sad Day

Naomi with her daughter Roshel at the NLTC office, September 2009

NATC would like to inform its readers with a very heavy heart that Naomi Zeinabu Meh passed away on Friday, 2 August. 

Naomi was suffering from a cancerous tumour which ruptured and, finally took her life. A bright and unforgettable personality, Naomi had been battling this disease and TB for several years. During this time, she even had her leg amputated at Firestone Hospital. Still, she struggled to fight her illness, live with the loss of a limb and take care of her little daughter, all the while also dealing with a difficult marriage. She was separated and, was constantly fighting to receive alimony from her estranged husband. 

We know Naomi since she worked at NATC's predecessor, NLTC. We witnessed her suffering and, decided to help her out. 

We financed her trip to India for diagnosis and treatment. We blogged about her stay in India and, wrote an update Update on Naomi Meh - "Help NATC Save a Life" when she came to back to Liberia. 

We wish we could have done more to help her and, had the financial resources at our disposal to send her back to India for a second round of treatment. We feel helpless and full of grief at how much she suffered in life and, lost her battle to disease, leaving behind her daughter. 

Living and working in a poor country like Liberia where medical care is at such a pitiful state that one feels the average Liberian stands no chance if hurt or ill. Cancer, if detected early, can be treated but where is the hope in Liberia where hospitals and clinics are not fully equipped or staffed? 

Company blogs are meant to be upbeat and positive but today we are full of sorrow. May her soul rest in peace. 

LEC does work!

We have a 3-phase meter and, one of the phases tripped this morning. We filed a complaint at the LEC and, lo and behold, they were here the very same day to resolve the issue! They did some work on the main pole and, we were able to switch back to our LEC connection. 

It is nice to actually praise LEC for once. 

We asked the Team Leader to pose for a photo so I could share with everyone. 

Fungi Have Mushroomed in Our Office

Some mysterious mushrooms mushroomed in our office over the weekend! We got pretty excited to see these fantastical creatures flourishing on our slightly damp floor. How did they manage to grow on a painted floor? Where did they get their nutrients from? Are they edible?

As our head of operations said, under the right conditions, life can thrive in the most challenging of environments. 

Notwithstanding issues of maintenance and making sure, our office is dry, may ever day be so wondrous! 

New electricity poles?

It looks like new electricity poles are being installed on Randall Street. I've noticed 3 new ones this week while walking to work.

I hope this means that the power we get from LEC will be more stable and actually read 220 volts. 

It would have been nice if the authorities both at LEC and the city government level would have informed the public about what is going on.