Our Tenuous Fate

I was on night last night.  During the day a group of us traveled to Bureh Beach.  I would have loved to go to River No. 2, another beach run by the community where any income earned gets ploughed into the local people but that was not going to be the case.  Nevertheless we all had a relaxing time but for some of us we had to return on time for night duty.  On our way to the beach, we passed Kerry Town ETC and we wondered briefly whether we should pay our sick fellow Ebola fighter a visit.  However we did not stop.  At the entrance to the beach, the community cordons off the road and requested that we came down to wash our hands.  Unlike other places, I was told that this community has not been visited by Ebola.

On the beach there were some volunteers from GOAL who were enjoying their last day in Sierra Leon.  A couple of them were definitely upset about the American doctor who fell ill with Ebola because, according to them, he was not careful with his practices and when he fell ill, several people were exposed including three of their own colleagues who were evacuated back to Denmark.  GOAL and PIH volunteers live in the same compound in Port Loko.  Not knowing that I too am an American, they told me that all the Americans have gone home and the Marforki ETC in Port Loko is now only run by the nationals.  Even so I think they should be more sympathetic and forgiving since it is one of us volunteers who fell ill and is now listed in critical condition.

Just before we started our shift, the lab results came.  Unfortunately there is a slight setback for Faday who really wants to go home.  His first negative Ebola test is now followed by a positive test, albeit we were told the titer is a low one.  The best news of all is that Ishmeil has his first negative Ebola test and everyone cheered for this little one.  He has been here for 17 days, probably an eternity for a youngster, having lost 2 siblings and a great grandfather in the ETC.

There will be two discharges in the morning, these patients do not have Ebola, they have malaria.

Three-year-old Ibrahim, Asiatu’s son was brought into the Probable Ward from the village.  He is stable, eating and drinking well.  Asiatu remains without symptoms but overnight Mariatu started to have high fever, bloody diarrhea and also coughing up blood.  She is keen on taking her ORS and does not want all that IV fluids but we explained to her that we need to catch up on the losses through her diarrhea.

As our morning shift drew to an end, a national worker brought in two live chickens into the ETC heading for the kitchen.  The fate of these poor creatures was sealed.  They would be someone’s lunch today.

Here is a link to an article in the New York Times regarding the differential treatment of Ebola infected foreign and national healthcare workers which I raised in my last post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/africa/hospital-says-american-clinician-being-treated-for-ebola-is-worsening.html