Corporate governance at its best!
We all are familiar with the brand name of Firestone – a tyre company. But very few of us know that this company has singlehandedly done a lot for fighting Ebola in Liberia, the very epicenter of the deadly disease.
Firestone has its rubber plantation at Harbel in Liberia, making up a community of some 80,000 people. On 30th March, one employees wife contacted Ebola, getting infected while treating someone else. Taking that a cue, it set up a treatment center and immediately worked on stopping the spread of this disease right in its track. Currently, not a single person of the 80,000 community has ebola though it continues to treat those from neighboring towns.
When the first case came, Firestone did not know how to deal with and none had any previous experience. No help came from the Govt which was itself learning to deal. The management of the company scoured the internet on ways to treat Ebola. They first cleared one entire building to set up the hospital and isolation ward. The same hazmat suits which they used for dealing with chemical spills at the rubber factory was given to the hospital staff and worked well for warding off ebola infection. Unlike others around, Firestone had support in terms of finance and other resources and that went a long way in fighting ebola. As infection spread, by September, its 23 bed hospital was full. Seventy-two cases were reported. Forty-eight were treated in the hospital and 18 survived.
What is remarkable here is that even while the rest of the country grapples with Ebola outbreak, Firestone appears to have blocked the virus from spreading inside its territory. Maybe what the country needs is more companies like Firestone; that in itself can help. This also goes on to show how a company, if it decides to rise to a situation can indeed work miracles.