Global: Ebola caregivers - fear, risk and bravery

Written by Super User 17 Oct 2014

They dedicate their lives to saving others, but as Ebola spreads worldwide, healthcare workers must also focus on saving themselves. At least 416 health care workers have contracted Ebola and at least 233 have died. Doctors and nurses have described working conditions no one should endure. Every single move they make in treating a patient must be perfect. One slip-up - a torn glove or the smallest splat of infected fluid that gets on them  - could cost them their lives. Some wake up every morning with a sore throat from constantly breathing in chlorine fumes. In a profession that already demands much emotionally and physically, these caregivers are pushed to the edge in both respects. They have lost friends, colleagues and patients. All this as they beat back their own understandable paranoia and fear. In a clinic in Monrovia (Liberia's capital) patients lie on stretchers on filthy floors near open buckets with objects and substances in them.

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