More on the Ebola Crisis from Rachel D-A

David Duncombe-Anderson writes:-
The latest round robin from Rachel – a bit graphic in places, but not too long now before she is home and safe.

Do read the link – a-day-in-the-life-of-an-african..... as it has a really positive ending.

Happy New Year!

 

From: Rachel Duncombe-Anderson

Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 12:31 PM

To: undisclosed-recipients:

Subject: Christmas and Happy New Year

  

Hi guys,

 

So sorry not to be in touch but it's been really busy over the last week or so. Christmas was a very interesting time and thanks so much for your messages as they did make a real difference. I certainly haven't ever experienced anything like this past few weeks, that's for sure.

 

The disease - The main thing to report is how brutal Ebola is. I suppose that sounds pretty obvious but I have never seen something so cruel that brings in healthy, young and fit looking patients and within days or sometimes hours they are gone. Having been used to seeing horrible traumas and sick people nothing can prepare you for this disease and the impact it is having on this country. The other night I was talking to the WASH team and most were recent graduates reduced to working in an ETC whilst their country is put on hold - one an accountant, an electronics engineer and a few teachers who can't teach as schools remain closed. Many of our staff are separated from their families due to working up here in the ETC and one of my nurses has been thrown out of her house by a landlord who is unhappy that she works with people with Ebola. Keep thinking about the people here - they need to be remembered.

UK Nurse with Ebola – so the news that a nurse has contracted Ebola whilst out here has shaken us quite a lot. Our colleagues in Freetown worked with her so that brings it home to us that it could have been one of us.  If complacency or casualness towards PPE and doffing had begun to manifest  you can rest assured that this story has focused us entirely and doffing continues to be the most important aspect that we can get right.  That said, there are occasions where things happen that are out of our control. This last week has seen a few breaches in PPE for all of us – a breach can be a tear in a glove, a pair of goggles sliding off the face or something more dramatic like a fall.  I have had two breaches in my outside pair of gloves which is both annoying and scary - annoying because you have to leave the unit immediately and that may be right in the middle of your medicine round and scary because of the greater.Just to reassure you all though, in both cases my inside glove was unaffected and even if a tear had occurred to the inside glove I don’t have any cuts on my hands and skin remains a good barrier to the virus – in other words this is a very low risk breach. One of my national nurses was not so lucky this week – she had chlorine sprayed in her face whilst doffing, couldn’t breathe and then pulled her goggles and mask down. As she turned to wash her hands, she then tripped over and fell in a big pool of chlorine.  The protocol was clear and we walked her through the doffing process from there but it was very sobering and pretty frightening to her.

 

One of our colleagues working at Kerrytown, Freetown wrote this article which is such a great description of a shift here.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/day-in-the-life-of-an-african-ebola-ward.26176342

 

Anyway, I know that this sounds gloomy and yet there is real joy and laughter in each day. We have had our first survivors this last few days and the excitement and joy we feel when the patients come through the shower that straddles the high and low risk zones  (renamed' the shower of joy') is unbelievable. They come through the door in new clothes and having had one last chlorine shower they come out to an explosion of singing, drumming and dancing. It's hard to hold back the tears as the survivors start dancing for joy and seeing us close up without PPE on.

On fun - New Year's eve was one of the oddest and funniest I've had. I thought I would be heading to bed at about 9.30 as I'd just come off a late shift but suddenly the kitchen staff started shaking their stuff and to a combination  of soppy 90s film music and pounding Sierra Leonian worship music :
Happy New Year mi nor die oh
Tel God tenki for mi life oh)
we all whirled like dervishes and managed to stay up to the heady heights of 00.05. Tenki means thank you and this song, although predates Ebola has never seemed so poignant to people here.

So spirits are high and we have one last week with the team intact and then next weekend it starts to break up as some leave for the UK and a new team of 25 arrive from the UK and we start their training.

Thanks so much for the emails and so sorry that I have not been able to reply fully to you all. I will try and send one last email out in the next weeks but really looking forward to seeing you later in the year.

Big big love
R xxx

ps - and if you didn't hear it and still have a bit of time on your hands http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vkl9g