‘I could not sit back and watch people die’
A file photo taken on November 12, 2014 shows a health worker from Sierra Leone's Red Cross Society Burial Team 7 carrying the corpse of a child in Freetown. Sierra Leone has announced the return of Ebola to its capital Freetown, dashing hopes that health authorities in the densely-populated city of 1.2 million had beaten the deadly outbreak. AFP PHOTO | FRANCISCO LEONG
What you need to know:
- For her, the fight against the disease begun the moment the outbreak was announced by the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Her first challenge came even before she flew to the disease-laden region when she had to handle a patient who had been taken to Mbagathi hospital with Ebola symptoms.
- “As a foreigner, being accepted into a new community was not a walk in the park, we had to be accompanied by military officers to the affected villages," she said.
Dr Margaret Korir has found gratification. It is the kind of fulfilment that many would shy away from, but taking part in humanitarian work is something she would do any day.
She is one of the health workers who went on assignment in Sierra Leone, one of the West African countries which was hit by the deadly Ebola virus.
Before taking up the assignment, she was leading the Kenyan team of health workers who were preparing to respond in case the virus was detected in the country.
I left home prepared and my two sons in the care of the househelp and in the hands of God and set out to serve humanity.
As a full-time public health officer in charge of disease surveillance at Mbagathi Hospital in Nairobi, Ms Korir lobbied for health workers in the country to receive training and protective gear in preparation for a possible Ebola attack.
Later, the mother of two was among the 170 Kenyan volunteers who travelled to Sierra Leon on a mission to help contain Ebola.
For her, the fight against the disease begun the moment the outbreak was announced by the World Health Organization (WHO). “When the number of deaths were rising in West Africa, I was in my office wondering what we could do to ensure the situation does not spill over to our porous borders,” says Ms Korir.
FEAR MELTED AWAY
“I could not sit back and watch people die. So as WHO was doing its road map, marking the prevalence of the disease, I was doing my own road map identifying the most vulnerable areas should we be struck,” adds the nurse.
Once she decided she would go, Ms Korir approached the WHO and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) for protective gear and training for health workers who would travel to Sierra Leone. “I was given 150 personal protective clothes for health workers. We need to be prepared for anything.”
Her first challenge came even before she flew to the disease-laden region when she had to handle a patient who had been taken to Mbagathi hospital with Ebola symptoms.
“When we saw the patient was presenting similar symptoms as those of Ebola, we quickly responded to help. Luckily, the patient tested negative,” says Ms Korir, who adds that at the moment, the fear of handling infected patients had already melted away.
On January 9, Ms Korir was on a Sierra Leone bound-flight for her first humanitarian aid mission. This time, she was going to get her first ever experience of handling Ebola patients and victims.
“I left home prepared and my two sons in the care of the househelp and in the hands of God and set out to serve humanity,” she says between heavy gasps.
Her role was to cut the chain of transmission and protect those infected from spreading the disease, and to offer psychological support to the affected families.
'RELATING WITH THE NEW COMMUNITY'
Back home, her family was deep in worry about her well-being, she says. Her son had to bear with constant reminders of his mother being in a killer-disease endemic region, and her relatives had to deal with psychological trauma and anxiety.
“They all kept asking when I would be back. In fact, when the first batch of medics jetted back and I wasn’t among them, the worry got worse and some of my relatives started thinking that I was infected with the disease,” she says.
But in addition to the worry, Ms Korir says that she had to deal with a number of challenges.
“As a foreigner, being accepted into a new community was not a walk in the park, we had to be accompanied by military officers to the affected villages. The terrain was bad and at times I could not help but miss my children,” she says.
The public health officer says that the experience has taught her number of lessons.
“The greatest one is how to handle such situations as a medic and the other one is relating with the new community as an aid worker. I remember learning a few words in the local dialect just to smoothen the relationship with the locals.”
Since the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was officially declared on March 22, 2014, in Guinea, it has claimed more than 10,000 lives in the region.
Ms Korir and other 14 health workers who stayed in Sierra Leone to ensure that the disease had been contained flew in two weeks ago.
“I am happy to have volunteered as I watched the transmission rates go down to zero in the hotspot areas.”
“As an aid worker, you never know where you will be sent, therefore you must devise ways of connecting with the people,” she advises.
WORKING TOO MANY HOURS
But not all aid workers returned home. A record number of doctors, nurses, and other health care workers caring for Ebola patients got infected in the course of their work.
About 891 health workers have contracted Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Bank. Just four months into the Ebola outbreaks, World Health Organisation figures show that more than 240 health care workers developed the disease in the tree countries. A French doctor who got infected in while working in Liberia was the group’s first member to be infected.
According to a World Bank report released in April this year more than 1,300 foreign medical personnel have been deployed to the three countries, including 835 medical personnel under the African Union Support to the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa and a Cuban team of 230 medical personnel.
Ebola is one of the world’s most deadly diseases. It is a highly infectious virus that, depending on the strain, can kill up to 90 per cent of the people who catch it, causing terror among infected communities.
The UN agency attributed the high proportion of infected medical staff to several factors including shortages of personal protective equipment or its improper use, far too few medical staff for such a large outbreak, and the compassion that causes medical staff to work in isolation wards far beyond the number of hours recommended as safe.
The loss of so many doctors and nurses has made it difficult for WHO to secure support from sufficient numbers of foreign medical staff yet in the hardest hit countries, WHO estimates that only one to two doctors are available to treat 100,000 people, and these doctors are heavily concentrated in urban areas.
The outbreak is the largest ever, and is currently affecting three countries in West Africa: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Outbreaks in Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal have been declared over. A separate outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has also ended.
