Nurse tried to help African Ebola victims
Rebecca Stretch, 43, Deputy Director of Infection Prevention and Control, travelled as part of the World Health Organisation (WHO) team.
She said: “The capacity of the hospital was about 35-40 patients but at one point we had around 100.
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Hide Ad“There’s only so much you can do once a person has Ebola – mainly hydration, sometimes antibiotics and other basic treatments for things such as malaria but a lot of rehydration.
“It was much more chaotic and dangerous than I had expected.
“I can’t explain the plight of the patients and the conditions in which we were trying to look after people in – no linen, not always washed, water delivered but not given to patients, sharps lying about, Oral Rehydration Solution not replenished. The most useful thing that I contributed was probably to improve infection control procedures, such as introducing one-way gates into the hospital.
“All I can take away is that I tried.”