Heavenly revelations in

Foreign doctors and nurses participating in the fight against Ebola in West Africa are working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week and wearing sealed protective gear from head to toe in the hot heat suffocated at dirty medical centers.

Meeting and witnessing painful and wretched deaths became a daily thing for them. However, these horrifying conditions are not the only problem: "Foreign" doctors and doctors are struggling to convince patients that they are working hard to help these people, instead of hurting. they.

The fight for faith

In West Africa full of rumors that Western medical aid workers are importing Ebola, stealing corpses or even deliberately infecting the deadly virus for patients. It is even more difficult to win the trust of the local people because they always have to wear full protective clothing including hoods, eyeglasses, gas masks and cloaks to hide their faces and bodies.

Members of the organization Doctors without borders wear tight protective suits during treatment for Ebola patients.(Photo: AP)

"You want to talk a lot . because they (the patients) are suffering so much. They are suffering too much, but they can only see your eyes , " said nurse Monia Sayah of the organization. humanitarian Doctors without borders, confided.

Ebola outbreaks, the most serious outbreak in the past four decades, are attacking three of the world's poorest countries, where health systems are already extremely poor, lack of equipment and lack of manpower. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, in Liberia, the Ebola epidemic, there is currently only 1 doctor for every 100,000 people. This rate in Sierra Leone is 2 doctors per 100,000 people, and there are no statistics for Guinea. Meanwhile, in the US, the number of doctors reaches 245 people for every 100,000 people.

Despite the sadness that contained the same state of exhaustion and dehydration, foreign doctors and doctors said it was difficult to stop supporting the treatment of patients in West Africa."When the predicament is too great, you can't think of being absent for a day or going home earlier," said Dr. Robert Fowler, who recently worked in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The emergency department doctor at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, Canada, now being seconded to the WHO mission, said that the barrier of the protective suit is quite large, but not impossible.

He said, receiving a girl about 6 years old, was taken to the late Ebola treatment center with symptoms of intestinal bleeding, severe dehydration and delirium. Ebola virus has claimed the lives of all her family members, leaving only me in this world.

At first, she was very frightened and refused to cooperate, just wanting to stay away from people. Still, Mr. Fowler spent many days trying to help the patient, giving her things he liked, such as Fanta soda. She eventually understood that the doctor in a tight protective suit looked scary, but was trying to save her life.

The girl then recovered well and was almost discharged at the time Dr. Fowler left Guinea. I am one of the few lucky Ebola cases, because death is the fate of more than half of the West Africans who are "sticky" in this outbreak.

"With the current death rate, you know that every day, some patients in your treatment room don't pass overnight," Mr. Fowler said.

Kent Brantly, an American doctor infected with Ebola last month when treating patients in West Africa, also concurred with his colleague Fowler when talking about the moral burden of fighting deadly disease.

"I had a handful of people when this terrible disease deprived them of their lives. I directly witnessed the terror and was still able to remember each face and name," Mr. Brantly revealed in a statement. Dad this month. Mr. Brantly is currently being treated at a hospital in Atlanta, USA and his health condition is improving gradually.

Dangerous work requires accuracy

Contacting and facing painful writhing deaths for Ebola is common for foreign doctors and doctors in West Africa.(Photo: AP)

Nurse Sayah added that the heat makes doctors and doctors unable to work more than an hour continuously in tight protective suits. It means that tasks have to be completed with precision almost in the military. Her Ebola hospital is a makeshift camp in Gueckedou, southern Guinea, which is organized. Doctors without the frontier set up to deal with cholera.

She said: "If you have to do the work related to the patient's blood, you only focus on that task. The other members of your group will take their food and drinks."

The difficult situation does not make it easier to witness a patient die."When a patient dies, it is very sad because we are their last hope , " said nurse Sayah.

Cokie van der Velde, a sanitation expert for the organization Without Borders Doctors in Guinea and Liberia, directly involved in cleaning Ebola rooms. She cleaned the floor, scrubbed the bucket and collected the corpses.

Mrs. Van der Velde has not forgotten a horrifying scene when she entered a room with 4 corpses in writhing postures, with blood and feces scattered everywhere. Normally, she lived in Yorkshire, England, planted gardens and looked after her grandchildren. She participated in medical relief in two recent Ebola outbreaks and expressed herself to do so because she believed in fairness and equality.

According to Ms. Van der Velde, the need for medical care is too great during the Ebola outbreak this time, because the virus has claimed the lives of many doctors and doctors. That triggered fears among local health workers, leading to many protests and resignations.

"We cannot blame them. They were too frightened," said Mrs. van Der Velde.