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New, Larger Ebola Center Opens in Liberia New, Larger Ebola Center Opens in Liberia
(about 4 hours later)
Doctors Without Borders began accepting patients on Sunday at what is intended to be the largest-ever Ebola treatment center, near Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. The center is near two previous units, which have been filled beyond their intended capacity as the number of suspected Ebola patients in the capital grew greatly in recent days. Doctors Without Borders began accepting patients on Sunday at what is intended to be the organization’s largest-ever Ebola treatment center, near Liberia’s capital, Monrovia.
The new unit, on the grounds of the Eternal Love Winning Africa mission hospital in Paynesville City, is designed to hold 120 patients and can be expanded to accommodate more than 300. There is an urgent need for it. On Sunday, patients who might be coming down with Ebola waited outdoors on the hospital grounds as a storm battered the city with rain. Nine patients were admitted to the new unit. The opening came a day after an improvised holding center at a former school in the densely packed West Point neighborhood of Monrovia was overrun by protesters who broke through the gates and carried away patients and supplies, including contaminated mattresses.
“There are still a number in the intake care,” said Tim Shenk, a spokesman for Doctors Without Borders in Monrovia, which is running the center. “It’s not open for a larger number of patients at this point. We’re going to scale it up fairly gradually so the staff can really master everything.” On Sunday, the community’s elders and leadership apologized for the disturbance, and public health workers hoped to reopen the West Point center on Monday, said Samuel Tarplah, 48, a nurse who ran it. “I believe we will get all the patients back,” he added.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, in an interview last week, said that she hoped the new unit would relieve the problem of insufficient space. The new Doctors Without Borders treatment unit, a series of large white tents on the grounds of the Eternal Love Winning Africa mission hospital in Paynesville, is designed to hold an initial 120 patients and then to be expanded to accept up to 400.
The rush of people reporting for testing and isolation in the capital has come in part, doctors say, from increased public awareness. Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf has been ubiquitous in the media, informing the public about Ebola and how to protect themselves. “I think it will be full very fast, and the situation will continue to get worse,” said Lindis Hurum, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Monrovia. “In general it is a very difficult and alarming situation. I can’t stress it enough.”
The opening of the new center came a day after a holding center in the West Point neighborhood of the capital was overrun by angry protesters who broke through its gates and carried away patients and supplies, including contaminated mattresses. The Health Ministry said it was looking for the missing patients. A treatment center in the north of the country, in Lofa County, was also overwhelmed with at least 140 patients on Saturday, Ms. Hurum said. Her group has only about nine doctors and nurses from outside the country working in Liberia, she said.
Samuel Tarplah, 48, a nurse running the center, said Saturday evening that the protesters wanted to shut it down. “They told us that we don’t want an Ebola holding center in our community,” he said, adding that the intruders even stole buckets of chlorine that had just been delivered. “They took everything.” The Health Ministry reported that, as of Friday, 450 people who had or were suspected to have had the disease had died.
Liberian health officials opened the West Point center in a former school last week to provide a place for people exposed to Ebola or showing symptoms to be isolated and tested, to avoid passing it to their family members. On Sunday, patients with symptoms of Ebola waited outdoors on the hospital grounds as a storm battered the city with rain. At least nine patients were admitted to the new unit, which Doctors Without Borders said would be scaled up gradually as staffing allowed.
“In our society, it’s very difficult, with a family member in the home, that they will not attempt to help,” Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf said. “Our culture is to shake hands, to hug, to help. That’s our culture.” President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in an interview last week, said she hoped the new unit, and a smaller one at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in the capital area that was scheduled to open Sunday, would relieve the space problem.
The West Point center remained closed on Sunday, as Liberia’s top health officials met to discuss how to respond to the latest setback in the unfolding crisis. The rush of people reporting for testing and isolation has come in part, doctors say, from increased public awareness messages in the media .
Making matters worse, gloves, gowns and other protective gear were not yet reaching hospitals in sufficient amounts. “In our society, it’s very difficult, with a family member in the home, that they will not attempt to help,” Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf said in the interview. “Our culture is to shake hands, to hug, to help.”
“Without these gloves and all, we are all very scared to see patients at all,” said Dr. Jimi Benson, founder and director of Benson Hospital in Paynesville, just outside Monrovia. Liberian health officials opened the West Point center last week to provide a place for people exposed to Ebola or showing symptoms to be isolated and tested, to avoid passing the virus, which spreads through contact with body fluids, to their family members.
Dr. Benson said that patients were reporting to the hospital with symptoms suggesting Ebola, but could be other illnesses, and that his staff needed to be able to examine them. “If we are not well dressed, that means we are taking a chance. There’s no sign for us to know that this patient coming in is an Ebola patient.” Dr. Walter T. Gwenigale, Liberia’s minister of health  and social welfare, said that the protesters had been angry because patients from outside West Point had been brought there. “We had promised them we would not take people from other areas into their community,” he said. “We didn’t have other places to take people.”
He said some staff members, beseeched by their families not to report to work, “are saying, ‘I’m going. I take oath to help my people.' ” Dr. Gwenigale said that one of the most pressing issues for the country was regular health care. Many hospitals have shut down because patients fear contracting Ebola at them.
His hospital, which normally has around 40 in-patients, was down to two on Sunday. “A lot of patients don’t want to be admitted,” he said. “Only very few patients would like to stay at a hospital all over the country. Making matters worse, protective gear was not yet reaching hospitals in sufficient amounts.
“Without these gloves and all, we are all very scared to see patients at all,” said Dr. Jimi Benson, founder and director of Benson Hospital in Paynesville.
Dr. Benson said that patients were reporting to the hospital with symptoms suggesting Ebola, but that could be other illnesses. “If we are not well dressed, that means we are taking a chance. There’s no sign for us to know that this patient coming in is an Ebola patient.”
He said some staff members, whose families had beseeched them not to report to work, “are saying: ‘I’m going. I take oath to help my people.’ ”
Dr. David Nabarro, who was appointed last week to coordinate the United Nations’ Ebola response, wrote in a text message on Sunday that the people most at risk of the disease and those fighting it had showed “courage and dedication.”