A Hospital From Hell, in a City Swamped by Ebola

[uppityperson]

This article well explains some of the reason ebola has continued to spread. Yes, there are serious questions for the hospital the man in Dallas went to, but this also might help explain why it hopefully will not become so bad here. It sounds awful, what is happening, and we are lucky to live in countries with more resources available for care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html?_r=0

MAKENI, Sierra Leone — “Where’s the corpse?” the burial-team worker shouted, kicking open the door of the isolation ward at the government hospital here. The body was right in front of him, a solidly built young man sprawled out on the floor all night, his right hand twisted in an awkward clench.

The other patients, normally padlocked inside, were too sick to look up as the body was hauled away. Nurses, some not wearing gloves and others in street clothes, clustered by the door as pools of the patients’ bodily fluids spread to the threshold. A worker kicked another man on the floor to see if he was still alive. The man’s foot moved and the team kept going. It was 1:30 in the afternoon.

In the next ward, a 4-year-old girl lay on the floor in urine, motionless, bleeding from her mouth, her eyes open. A corpse lay in the corner — a young woman, legs akimbo, who had died overnight. A small child stood in a cot watching as the team took the body away, stepping around a little boy lying immobile next to black buckets of vomit. They sprayed the body, and the little girl on the floor, with chlorine as they left.

(clip)

But little of that help has reached this city. The dead, the gravely ill, those who are vomiting or have diarrhea, are placed among patients who have not yet been confirmed as Ebola victims — there is not even a laboratory here to test them. At one of the three holding centers in Makeni, dazed Ebola patients linger outside, close to health workers and soldiers guarding them. The risk of infection is high, the precautions minimal.

[dembotoz]

1. when we think hospital we think hospital

sad

[uppityperson]

2. This goes a ways toward explaining why the outbreak and hopefully calming some of the

fears here.

[Warpy]

3. They don't isolate patients because there is no isolation ward to put them in

In fact, hospitals there are places only people sick with bacterial and parasitic infections can expect to be cured and surgeries performed by a surgeon who often covers several hospitals.

[uppityperson]

8. And there is the fear that if you go to a hospital, you will die. Better to stay at home and let

your family care for you. Poor families, stuck between the awful and awfuler.

[Laxman]

4. The Use Of The Word "Hospital"....

is a bit different in reality in Sierra Leone than what our reality is here in the U.S. Frontline did a show on the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone earlier this month that you can watch here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ebola-outbreak/ It's sobering and makes it clear what is going on and why the outbreak is so severe. Seeing the actual conditions there is really frightening.

[uppityperson]

7. And the dead are VERY contagious, yet culture is to wash, take them home, bury, vs burn.

It is a very different place, facilities, culture, belief system, etc etc etc.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/inside-frontline/inside-the-ebola-outbreak/

[Warpy]

10. Our vet clinics are better than their hospitals

That's what extreme poverty is all about, the lack of infrastructure as well as the lack of personal income.

[Catherine Vincent]

5. :(

[Avalux]

9. Horrific. And there's not quick solution.

That's the dilemma. As time goes on, and the epidemic spreads, containing it becomes more and more difficult. When the WHO says they underestimated what they were up against, this is why.

[cali]

11. thank you for posting this. horrific. and the slide show is heartbreaking.