Keeping the fighters safe
As healthworkers in Sierra Leone lead the fight against Ebola, they too are often succumbing to the virus. World Vision has already donated and distributed large quantities of protective gear and medical supplies, but as Allieu Bangura, World Vision Sierra Leone’s National Health Advisor, explains, more equipment is urgently needed.
By Allieu Bangura, National Health Advisor World Vision Sierra Leone
The past few months have been difficult across Sierra Leone and West Africa. Too many of our health workers don’t have the proper equipment to protect themselves. Ebola is cruel, and is ripping through families across Sierra Leone. Distressed mothers lay in their own vomit too weak to move or care for the dying infant next to them. Families are divided as test results come back positive or negative – proper goodbyes are not allowed as the unlucky ones are left to live or die on their own.
Jalikatu is an exception. As an Ebola survivor, she is allowed to return to the Hastings Treatment Centre where she recovered not too long ago. Her little brother has taken her former place in the ward and now lies in isolation. She’s brought him a boiled egg – to keep his strength up, and hopes that soon he too will be able to come home.
In the midst of the chaos of families and ill children, our health workers keep going. In intense 32 degree heat they put on heavy layers of protective gear and tend to patients. They respond to symptoms as they can, replacing lost fluids and trying to lower fevers, while they themselves sweat so profusely that it pools in their gumboots. They will be pulled off the ward in a few hours - they risk fainting or heat exhaustion if they are allowed to stay any longer.
While at Hastings Jalikatu stops to talk to some of the doctors and nurses who saw her through her own bout with Ebola. Like Jalikatu, her nurses and doctors are some of the lucky ones. In most hospitals and even treatment centres, protective equipment and basic supplies like chlorine are lacking. Over 60 nurses and doctors have died during this outbreak from strenuous conditions and a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). PPE can keep them safe from infection, even if it cannot help with the overall conditions.
The dearth of protective equipment has meant that doctors trying to tend Ebola patients often end up succumbing to the disease themselves. In some cases nurses and doctors have been left with no choice but to abandon hospitals, and infected people are being turned away from treatment centres that are too full to cope.
World Vision is working to get extra centres equipped to give us the best chance of beating this disease and keeping families safe. Thanks to our supporters, we have already donated a plane load of protective equipment and other medical supplies to the Ministry of Health & Sanitation to curtail the spread of the virus. The donation, worth over a quarter of a million pounds, is considered to be one of the biggest donations in the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone. Deputy Minister of Health Madina Rhaman was among those who received the supplies in Sierra Leone last week.
“If we had had this protective equipment and other medical supplies earlier, our doctors and nurses would not have met fatalities. As Ebola still continues to rage, these came in the right time. Being a nurse myself for 32 years I am happy to express profound gratitude to World Vision for the donation.”
World Vision is distributing protective equipment and medical supplies across Sierra Leone, including the treatment centre at Hastings where Jalikatu and her brother received help. You can help equip more health workers in more health centres to fight against the virus’ spread by donating to our Ebola Crisis Appeal »