In Liberia, one woman's singular fight against Ebola
Source: Los Angeles Times
Local doctors were horrified. Fatu Kekula was trying to care for her family, sick with Ebola, at home using nothing more than plastic trash bags, a raincoat bought in the market, boots, a surgical mask and gloves.
They called, urging her to be sensible.
“Doctors called and told me to leave them right alone and not go anywhere near them,” the 22-year-old nursing student said. “I couldn’t. They’re my only family.
>snip<
“Since I know small, small medicine, I said, ‘God, with my faith I’m going to get my father home, and he’ll survive.’”
She set up a makeshift isolation room in a spare unfinished room outside the house. She bought raincoats, rain boots, chlorine and other supplies. Then she went to work.
When she entered her father’s treatment room she put on socks, plastic bags donned like waders, rain boots, four sets of gloves, a coat, a mask and a plastic bag over her hair. He wouldn’t eat. Carefully, she put in an intravenous drip. She poured rehydration liquids down his throat, drop by drop.
She gave him blood pressure medicine, antibiotics, analgesics for his fever and splitting headache. She even gave him an antiretroviral medicine normally used to save the lives of AIDS patients.
>snip<
She went through four boxes of surgical gloves, and bags of raincoats. When she took off the clothing, she had to shrug it off carefully to avoid touching the exterior. She sprayed copiously with chlorinated water. She carefully burned all the waste.
She swiftly burned through the $600 in her bank account.
“My approach was just to treat them based on their symptoms. I never felt tired. I was fighting for my family and their lives. I would do it for other people in the hospital so I knew I could do it for my family.”
>snip<
After helping her family, Fatu wants to spread hope, passing her knowledge on to other desperate families. She addressed workshops organized by the Ministry of Health, teaching people how to use plastic bags to protect themselves when there’s nothing else.
“I’m going to teach them the things I’ve already done, because I treated four people, and only one died,” she said.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-in-liberia-woman-fight-ebola-20141005-story.html
Fatu Kekula is a nursing student who knew what to do. And she did it. An isolation room at home; chlorine bleach; surgical gloves; plastic bags; courage.
I read this in my morning Times, and just had to share it. I wish the blabbermouths on TV who are spreading rumor and panic would read this and learn.
= new reply since forum marked as read
But she definitely fits my definition of angel. 
Good for her!
