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| NHS staff undertake Ebola training at a replica medical camp in Strensall, North Yorkshire. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA |
The first batch of NHS staff who volunteered to treat Ebola patients
in Sierra Leone are to leave the UK for west Africa after undergoing
extensive training designed to ensure none return with the virus.
The 50 staff will depart nearly six weeks after they were shortlisted as suitable by UK-Med, the organisation funded by the Department for International Development to recruit NHS staff for secondment. Nearly 1,000 volunteered, but because of the need for careful selection and training, none have yet flown out.
The particular risk to health workers is highlighted by the news that one of the 250 Cuban doctors and nurses sent to the Ebola epidemic region has become infected. Félix Báez Sarría, one of about 165 Cuban medics in Sierra Leone, is being flown to Switzerland for treatment. “He’s not critical, he’s doing well, in a good condition,” said his boss, Dr Jorge Delgado Bustillo. “The most important thing now is to get him evacuated to Geneva.”
The official Ebola death toll has risen to 5,420 out of 15,145 cases, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday, although the true figures are thought to be far higher.
There is a pressing need for more healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The United Nations said at the end of October that 5,000 international personnel were needed, including up to 10,00 health workers. European Union officials said this week that thousands more physicians, epidemiologists, nurses and paramedics were required. “We need these people to provide treatment and also to locate Ebola victims, guide them toward clinics, train local personnel, perform contact tracing, implement awareness programmes,” said EU health commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis on his return from a visit to the region.
The One Campaign, which has launched an interactive Ebola Response Tracker to monitor how governments and foundations fulfil their pledges for money and personnel, believes there should be greater urgency.
“Although we have rough estimates of how many healthcare workers from a number of countries are on the ground (both voluntarily or with government support), we do not yet have a clear sense of exact numbers, the range of skills and training, how well these skills match the needs on the ground, and what specific gaps remain,” said Diane Sheard, UK director.
“We’ve been encouraged to see that more governments have committed healthcare workers in recent weeks, but this is still not happening with sufficient urgency to control the fast-moving outbreak. We are concerned that many potential volunteers now face fear, stigma, quarantine or isolation upon returning home and as a result are not stepping forward. Anyone who risks their own life to save another should be welcomed home with open arms.”
The NHS volunteers will work with one of four NGOs - Save the Children, Go (Ireland), Emergency (Italy) and Doctors of the World (Spain). Among them is Professor John Wright, director of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, a clinical epidemiologist who worked in southern Africa in the early 1990s, when HIV was endemic and untreatable, and has continued to visit. Although he will take part in the care of Ebola patients, because of his expertise he has also been asked to lead a new treatment centre set up in Moyamba, Sierra Leone, by Doctors of the World, which will be staffed by 25 Norwegian doctors and nurses.
There was, he said, “a little bit of trepidation” when he got the call to say he had been selected, “but the training helps. You get into the discipline of infection control - and this is the biggest public health threat in modern history.”
Volunteers spent nine days in a hangar outside York converted by the military into an Ebola treatment centre and heated to African temperatures so they could get used to wearing the protective suits. “It was terrible – at English winter temperatures is was terrible after an hour or so, but you get used to it. You acclimatise,” Wright said.
The Moyamba treatment centre is little more than a patch of cleared ground at the moment and will not open until 15 December and, for safety, will only take 10 patients at first and progress gradually to 100. Wright has been able to contact local tribal chiefs. “Their response is – we need you. Come quickly,” he said. “They are frustrated we haven’t got the facilities up and running – what can they do with people with Ebola at the moment? The chiefs are saying they are putting them in detention centres.”
All NHS volunteers have to be approved to go by their hospital, which may need to find cover for them. Wright has the blessing of the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Professor Clive Kay, the chief executive, said Wright had a wealth of experience in Africa. “We wish him good luck and safe keeping in his endeavour. We encourage our staff to take part in humanitarian work and each application from our doctors and nurses is considered on a case-by-case basis to ensure that the remaining NHS services are safely covered.”
The 50 staff will depart nearly six weeks after they were shortlisted as suitable by UK-Med, the organisation funded by the Department for International Development to recruit NHS staff for secondment. Nearly 1,000 volunteered, but because of the need for careful selection and training, none have yet flown out.
The particular risk to health workers is highlighted by the news that one of the 250 Cuban doctors and nurses sent to the Ebola epidemic region has become infected. Félix Báez Sarría, one of about 165 Cuban medics in Sierra Leone, is being flown to Switzerland for treatment. “He’s not critical, he’s doing well, in a good condition,” said his boss, Dr Jorge Delgado Bustillo. “The most important thing now is to get him evacuated to Geneva.”
The official Ebola death toll has risen to 5,420 out of 15,145 cases, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday, although the true figures are thought to be far higher.
There is a pressing need for more healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The United Nations said at the end of October that 5,000 international personnel were needed, including up to 10,00 health workers. European Union officials said this week that thousands more physicians, epidemiologists, nurses and paramedics were required. “We need these people to provide treatment and also to locate Ebola victims, guide them toward clinics, train local personnel, perform contact tracing, implement awareness programmes,” said EU health commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis on his return from a visit to the region.
The One Campaign, which has launched an interactive Ebola Response Tracker to monitor how governments and foundations fulfil their pledges for money and personnel, believes there should be greater urgency.
“Although we have rough estimates of how many healthcare workers from a number of countries are on the ground (both voluntarily or with government support), we do not yet have a clear sense of exact numbers, the range of skills and training, how well these skills match the needs on the ground, and what specific gaps remain,” said Diane Sheard, UK director.
“We’ve been encouraged to see that more governments have committed healthcare workers in recent weeks, but this is still not happening with sufficient urgency to control the fast-moving outbreak. We are concerned that many potential volunteers now face fear, stigma, quarantine or isolation upon returning home and as a result are not stepping forward. Anyone who risks their own life to save another should be welcomed home with open arms.”
The NHS volunteers will work with one of four NGOs - Save the Children, Go (Ireland), Emergency (Italy) and Doctors of the World (Spain). Among them is Professor John Wright, director of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, a clinical epidemiologist who worked in southern Africa in the early 1990s, when HIV was endemic and untreatable, and has continued to visit. Although he will take part in the care of Ebola patients, because of his expertise he has also been asked to lead a new treatment centre set up in Moyamba, Sierra Leone, by Doctors of the World, which will be staffed by 25 Norwegian doctors and nurses.
There was, he said, “a little bit of trepidation” when he got the call to say he had been selected, “but the training helps. You get into the discipline of infection control - and this is the biggest public health threat in modern history.”
Volunteers spent nine days in a hangar outside York converted by the military into an Ebola treatment centre and heated to African temperatures so they could get used to wearing the protective suits. “It was terrible – at English winter temperatures is was terrible after an hour or so, but you get used to it. You acclimatise,” Wright said.
The Moyamba treatment centre is little more than a patch of cleared ground at the moment and will not open until 15 December and, for safety, will only take 10 patients at first and progress gradually to 100. Wright has been able to contact local tribal chiefs. “Their response is – we need you. Come quickly,” he said. “They are frustrated we haven’t got the facilities up and running – what can they do with people with Ebola at the moment? The chiefs are saying they are putting them in detention centres.”
All NHS volunteers have to be approved to go by their hospital, which may need to find cover for them. Wright has the blessing of the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Professor Clive Kay, the chief executive, said Wright had a wealth of experience in Africa. “We wish him good luck and safe keeping in his endeavour. We encourage our staff to take part in humanitarian work and each application from our doctors and nurses is considered on a case-by-case basis to ensure that the remaining NHS services are safely covered.”
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