\u201cAfter that, we put on a hood, and then an apron. We are checked for any leaks of air, and they write our names on a piece of tape on the apron. This way we know each other when we are inside, and the patient knows whom he is talking to. They write, also, the time when we finish putting on the full P.P.E. If I finish before my buddy, my time is written first. We monitor who reaches a maximum of one hour inside the P.P.E. so that the buddy can tell him to go out.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the time, when doctors enter, the nurses go through the vital signs, but for critical patients we have to take vitals again and do a quick A.B.C.D. (airway, breathing, circulation, disability) assessment. If there are not many critical patients, we can see up to six patients in one hour. But when there are more critical patients we sometimes see only two. We go out, refresh, and then go back after one or two hours of rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we leave the red zone, we write the status of the patient. In Bunia, we have a Plexiglas divider where we hang what we\u2019ve written. The clinician on the other side can quickly copy the notes before we discard them in the red zone. (In Beni, we go to a designated area within the E.T.C. where we can talk to clinicians who are on the other side\u2014the green side. We dictate to them each patient\u2019s instructions.) Once we finish that, we doff our P.P.E. under supervision. Someone receives us with a bottle of water and biscuits. And then we go sit down, recover for a few minutes, and we start discussing each patient again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first obvious thing you feel in P.P.E. is the heat. It\u2019s really hot. You are putting everything on top of the scrubs that you are wearing. I come out of the red zone and I\u2019m totally wet with sweat. I\u2019ve seen in past outbreaks, like in Liberia, colleagues falling inside P.P.E. The second thing is breathing. When you have everything on, there is a barrier for airflow. Often, if the supervisor did not pay attention, we have to say, \u2018O.K., let\u2019s go out, because your goggles are fogging.\u2019 If you don\u2019t see well, you can easily stumble on something and fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the red zone, I know I\u2019m going to see patients who are confirmed to have Ebola. If I make any mistake, I will also be in quarantine for twenty-one days\u2014or I will also be infected. So we enter with that anxiety, knowing that this is a risk that I\u2019m taking. I know that everybody has that level of fear. But I have to go. Because I\u2019ve been in many other outbreaks, I trust that, if I respect the protocols, there is nothing that will happen to me. And that has helped me a lot in gaining confidence. I always tell my colleagues that, if we continue to respect the protocol, none of us will be affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to be trained well to avoid being in a panic when they are removing the P.P.E., because that\u2019s the critical moment. We have entered the red zone. We have touched patients. Our colleagues sometimes have to mop the blood of confirmed patients, or body fluids. I myself was taking care of a patient, and he sneezed and everything went on my apron. We have a mirror so that you can see what you are doing. We have, also, a huge banner showing each step. And then there is a person in the green zone, in light P.P.E., who is also giving instructions: \u2018O.K., now you can wash your hands.\u2019 And then we have a sprayer who is spraying us with disinfectant. If there is visible soiling on our P.P.E., he cannot spray, because he will spread those things. So he will just tell us what to do, like removing it carefully and dropping it in chlorine very quickly before we wash hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecently, a man in his forties was brought in. He had spent two weeks with symptoms. He had a light fever first, with vomiting and muscle pain, but it was mild enough for him to stay in the community. And then when symptoms started to worsen\u2014especially when he started having profuse diarrhea and vomiting, ten days later\u2014he was brought to us. He was already very weak. He was no longer fully conscious and was not able to listen. And he was still passing a lot of diarrhea. Because of vomiting, we put in a nasogastric tube. A moment later, he started bleeding everywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAfter that, we put on a hood, and then an apron. We are checked for any leaks of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[275],"tags":[36813,686,47128,18,135,475,474,19,17],"class_list":["post-600322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-democratic-republic-of-the-congo","tag-doctors","tag-ebola","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116969492030412148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}