Anxious Liberians flood new Ebola center

By Evelyn T. Kpadeh 

MONROVIA

A new Ebola treatment unit, which opened last week on Bushrod Island near Monrovia, has been overwhelmed by Liberians afraid of contracting the deadly virus.

"The public has realized that Ebola is real and they are beginning to accept it; people are willingly coming to the treatment unit," Dr. Atai Omoruto, a Ugandan doctor sent to Liberia to run the Island Clinic Ebola Center, told Anadolu Agency.

The center has a 150-bed capacity, but Omoruto said it had already received well over 150 people.

"People are flooding the Ebola treatment unit; 150 [beds] is our capacity and they are still coming," she said.

She asserted, however, that the center would not turn anyone away, noting that some people had settled in the corridors of the center.

"We cannot turn away patients. We shall put them in the corridor, put them in every corner where there is space available," she said. "Our goal is to contain the spread of the virus; and we'll do our best."

Liberians – including 22 children – had flocked to the facility from Monrovia and other parts of the country, she said.

The high turnout, however, has made Omoruto optimistic about the change of attitude on the part of Liberians regarding the outbreak. Such large numbers of people coming to the center, she said, indicated that public perceptions had changed.

It revealed, she said, that messages about the importance of early treatment were making an impact, as people were no longer afraid and hiding in their homes.

After more centers are built, Omoruto hopes, there will be a drastic reduction in the number of Ebola cases, which should become noticeable by December or January.

Ebola, a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure, has killed at least 3,083 people in West Africa in recent months, including 1,830 in Liberia alone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

-Untrained staff-

Omoruto was sent to Liberia by the WHO as part of an 11-member Ugandan team to join Liberia's fight against the virus. The team is currently based at the Island Clinic Ebola Center, where it is supported by 300 Liberian staffers who look after patients.

She said that managing the center required considerable energy and dedication, since some 90 percent of the local staff had little or no previous experience with Ebola.

"We are dealing with people most of whom have not handled Ebola before, so it's not easy to have them properly dressed and equipped," she said.

Omoruto noted, however, that in order to keep health workers safe while attending to patients, Liberian staffers had received days of intensive training on the use of personal protective equipment.  

"The use of personal protective equipment involves complicated garments. How to put it on and how to take it off is not easy for someone who has not done it before," she said.

Since the outbreak first appeared in March of this year, many of Liberia's major hospitals have closed due to health workers' fears of coming into contact with infected persons.

The opening of new Ebola treatment units across the country has cheered Liberians hoping to see an end to the outbreak, which has disrupted their lives for the last several months.

Local media has reported in recent weeks that treatment centers in Monrovia had been turning people away due to overcrowding. This reportedly prompted a number of infected people to return to their communities, further contributing to the spread of the virus.  

Earlier this month, an official with Paris-based humanitarian aid agency Doctors without Borders (MSF) admitted that the MSF's treatment center in Monrovia was having to turn people away due to the overwhelming number of new cases.

www.aa.com.tr/en