My first week at the Ebola Care Unit...well lots to take in but good! The center is set up in the community of Kontorloh, a suburb of Freetown, Sierra Leone on a local soccer field. This area was considered a hotspot and was in need of a facility. MedAir partnered with a local organization called Lifeline Nehemiah Project who've been working in this area since 1996 with orphans, rehabilitating child soldiers from the civil war, along with many other projects. At this point Lifeline is also working with quarantine distribution kits for families in quarantine.
Entrance to the 'Green Zone'. Each person who enters or leaves signs in/out, washes their hands with 0.05% bleach solution and has the bottoms of their shoes sprayed.
The center is divided into the Red Zone and Green Zone areas. Red Zone is the high risk area where patients infected with the Ebola virus are, and the Green Zone is the remainder of the facility. There is 2 meter fenced off area between the two zones, as seen in the picture below. To the left is the ambulance unload area in the Red zone. I was standing in the Green Zone area when taking the picture.
Green zone area consists of the psychosocial team tent, triage area, donning area (dressing area), bathrooms, & showers as pictured here.
The Green zone area continues to the tent on the left - office area, stock area, pharmacy, and lab staff area. The tent on the right is the staff lunch area. Beyond that is the donning area (undressing area), and laundry.
Pharmacy/lab team area.
The fierce lab team. They draw all our samples. The samples are then picked up by a military officer who brings them to one of two of the labs in Freetown that process Ebola samples.
Pharmacy
Laundry area
Some of the PPE (personal protective equipment) is bleached and reused (boots, googles, rubber gloves, and aprons), the other pieces are disposed of and burned.
The Red Cross has a burial team who picks up each body for safe burial practices.
The Red Zone consists of the ambulance area, triage area, our suspect/probable tents where patients are tested and wait for the results. When confirmed they then are moved to our confirmed tents. The facility has 20 beds in total spread over 5 tents.
Triage (means to sort) area. Red Zone on the left, Green zone on the right of the fence.
Doffing (dressing) area. Staff are specifically designated as 'dressers'.
Check and ready to go in. Our names are written on our heads and the time we enter on our sleeve. The max time inside the Red Zone is suppose to be an hour. This is where the heat becomes a killer - yikes!! So hot! Staff members follow us along the fence in the Green Zone to chart, pass food, ORS (oral rehydration salts), medication, or personal items needed for patients.
William (a lab tech) and I going in to draw a new patients blood work.
Our tables where we pass items from the Green to Red Zone.
The fence where nurses follow the team inside the Red Zone. The door to the left from the Red Zone to the left is for patients who were tested from the suspect tents, and are negative. They shower and receive new clothes when being discharged. They are quarantined for 21 days after and followed by our psychosocial team for potential exposure.
Doffing (undressing) area
Doffing is considered high risk, so we have trained staff to walk us through the process that takes ~ 15 minutes. Every piece of equipment you remove you need to wash your gloved hands with chlorine solution.
Initial spray down.
Spray down
Boot spray
Initial glove removal
Washing gloved hands between removal of each piece of PPE.
Face shield removal
Apron removal
Immerse the apron x3 in the chlorine solution, then x3 in the rinse solution
Goggle removal
Hood removal
Creole reminder: 'Wash yo han's'
Unzipping the suit
Mask removal
Last boot spray
This first week has been a good one, we discharged 4 survivors, and no deaths on my shift. So far I've only seen the better side of Ebola and not the awfulness of it firsthand. I wish I could post pictures/video's of the survivors being discharged and the celebration with it. Love it! We have a few orphan girls from Ebola claiming their parents lives, that's heartbreaking.
Thanks again so much for everyone who's praying. Can't do this without God's protection.
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