Giving Compass' Take:
- Rita M. Nelson discusses her experience as a nurse and infection prevention specialist instituting epidemic surveillance in areas of Liberia near Guinea, where an Ebola outbreak was declared.
- How can philanthropy help contain outbreaks of Ebola and support health care workers in Liberia and Guinea?
- Read about the 2014 Ebola crisis in Liberia.
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I first joined MSF in September 2014, as part of the response to the West African Ebola outbreak that hit Liberia that year.
On the day I applied for the role, I saw everyone wearing their yellow personal protective equipment, known as PPE. I saw people dying in the streets from Ebola, people lying along the fence, people carrying stretchers with bodies on them.
When I saw that, my whole spirit as a nurse left me. I felt physically ill from seeing so many people so sick, and bodies all around.
It's scary as a healthcare worker because you cannot help someone that is dying because you are also afraid to die. At that time, I actually felt lucky to have a job as a data encoder. That is how I started working during the outbreak, and how I was able to have the fear leave me.
The next year, MSF was opening a hospital to meet non-Ebola health needs in the capital Monrovia, so when I finished my job as a data encoder I successfully applied to work as a nurse in the hospital.
My first position was as an infection prevention and control supervisor, and later I became a nurse in the neonatal ward.
Learning to provide medical care to a newborn baby, with their tiny veins, was like magic for me. And, now I feel like I am super at it because I underwent the training with MSF.
With the help of my friends in the hospital, I started learning, learning, learning, until today I am who I am.
Read the full article about preventing an Ebola outbreak in Liberia by Rita M. Nelson at Doctors Without Borders.