• 12 February 2016

A life–changing encounter with Ebola

Christopher Wooster is an unassuming young man from the parish of Magheralin in Dromore diocese. Last year, this 23 year old lab technician volunteered for the front line fight against the Ebola virus and embarked upon what was to become a life–changing journey to Sierra Leone. 

In the summer of 2014, the world became aware of the terrible virus know as Ebola that was ravaging several countries in West Africa. Later that year an international response to the outbreak was called and in December 2014 the Public Health England (PHE) Laboratories opened in Sierra Leone. The mission of the Labs was simple, to test blood and swab samples, diagnosing Ebola to ensure that the spread of the virus was contained.

At the same time in Belfast I was having a conversation with a colleague that would change the course of my life. I was explaining my desire to use my scientific skills in a setting that really needed them, most specifically in the third world where those skills are not only rare but expensive to come by. I made a flippant comment that if I was serious I should go over to West Africa to volunteer in the Ebola response, whereupon she said “Why not? They’re crying out for Lab Staff”.

I found information on the internet from PHE appealing for volunteers and followed the instructions, sending an email through to the Ebola response team explaining my circumstances and background. I thought they would laugh me off. Who was I to serve in such a situation? I was only out of university a 18 months and with only a year’s experience working in a Laboratory. To my surprise and shock I received an immediate email back saying yes they would love to deploy me and asking when could I go. It was at this point I decided I should actually talk to my family about this! Although it was a largely academic discussion as now, knowing that I could be of use, how could I not go out to help? I remember my great Aunt asking “Don’t get me wrong, but why you?” My instinctual response was “why not me?”

Ebola Treatment Centre
Ebola Treatment Centre
That was how at 7.00 am in the morning on 7th May 2015 I found myself on a mini bus travelling from Freetown to Makeni. That I think was the greatest fear I faced – the not knowing. Not that I was unprepared, we knew the enemy we were facing, and we knew how to protect ourselves. Would I be able to be a full member of the team despite being the youngest and least experienced member on it? Would I be able to cope with being so far from home in West Africa? Despite all the preparation and reassurances I’d been given during my training week, these worries still gnawed at me as we travelled to Makeni. Thankfully, my worries were eclipsed by the new and slightly terrifying experience that was travelling in Sierra Leone. Let’s just say our driver engaged his horn more than he engaged the brakes!

We arrived in Makeni later that morning and I was bundled off to Room 2 of House 2 at the Makambo Village Hotel for some decent rest. We had arrived. I think on reflection the first day contained some of my favourite memories from my entire time in Sierra Leone. As a team, we were so green. Thankfully the old team were on hand to ensure a smooth hand–over.

Upon arrival for our shift at the Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC), pictured above, we had to go through security where we washed our hands in bleach, had the soles of our shoes sprayed in bleach and had our temperatures checked to make sure we didn’t have a fever. Afterwards, we would wash our hands in bleach again upon leaving the security hut and proceed to the staff changing rooms, which doubled as the boundary between the safe white zone, and the green zone where the Diagnostic laboratory was situated.

Due to the risk of contact with Ebola, safety procedures were strict. Before entering the changing rooms we had to wash our hands and dip our shoes into a bleach bath to sanitise the soles. At this point, on my first visit to the ETC, I along with a colleague didn’t so much dip my shoes into the bath but submerged them. Needless to say, our shoes began to turn a very interesting shade of pink!

Protective gear
Protective gear
Before entering the green zone, we would get changed into scrubs and replace our now thoroughly bleached shoes with Wellington boots. We would then don protective gear and head to the labs to start analysing the day’s samples. The lab was open from 6.00 am to 10.00 pm and the teams worked in shifts. We received the samples (either blood or swabs) via a hatch. The samples were kept under secure conditions so we could handle them safely. We’d examine the samples to search for Ebola genetic code to make a diagnosis.

I actually diagnosed one of the cases of Ebola discovered during my deployment at the lab. Thankfully, as the situation had improved, by the time I arrived in Makeni in May, the last Ebola cases in our districts were discharged from the treatment Centre soon after I arrived.

The effects of Ebola were impossible to ignore. We would hear daily updates from colleagues at other PHE laboratories who were inundated with samples to process and were diagnosing many cases in the north western districts of Sierra Leone. The ‘no touch’ policy was still in force, which, for such tactile people, I can only imagine was ridiculously difficult to follow.

A visit to the local SOS children’s village during my third week, introduced us to Sierra Leone’s new social problem – the plight of the ‘Ebola orphans’, those children whose entire adult family had succumbed to the virus and many of whom were now survivors of the disease themselves.

A visit to the Bombali district cemetery during my final week revealed the full horror of what my colleagues, many of whom I am now proud to call my friends, had faced. It was here that the stories of the early days in the response, told by veteran Ebola humanitarians, became very real. As one of my colleagues on my second deployment stated “the thing that really got me was there were at least 60 graves that said the people in them all came from the one village, then I looked again. They had all been buried within a week.” It was here that the virus showed that it does not discriminate between young and old, there were too many small mounds, too many children. How can one cope with these horrors?

At work in the lab
At work in the lab
By looking to the examples of those who lived through the worst of it, the Sierra Leonean people, despite everything they’ve been through still live graciously and with hope. They look at what they have and are incredibly grateful to their God for it, I cannot count the amount of times I heard the phrase “I tell God Tenki!”, sometimes in reference to the fact they have a job, their family, or somewhere to call their own home. They did not need all three to be grateful for one. Their happiness is not conditional. They focus on what they have to be grateful to God for rather than what they have to be bitter and rail against God for. They have acknowledged their losses, yes, they mourn for those who are gone, for the children left without parents and the parents left without children, but they live in hope.

For some that is the hope found in Christianity, others a hope found in Islam. For others it is the hope found in community or the fact that they have future to be hopeful about. I remember one survivor of the virus making a speech at his ‘1st birthday party’ (thrown one year from the day he was discharged and declared negative for Ebola), here on that evening he told his story. He had been a nurse working in one of the first ETCs to open at the very beginning of the outbreak fighting Ebola when it was at its height, and he contracted the virus. He was of course admitted to a treatment centre, and placed in a confirmed ward with other Ebola patients. When it became clear that he was recovering he would help the ETC staff as a nurse in this ward and as such offer up his own bed for other patients to use. There were 18 patients in that ward and he was the only one to survive. Yet, despite the survivor’s guilt, despite the persecution and fear Ebola survivors face, despite everything he had lost he looked forward to a day when he and other survivors were not feared and not persecuted. He was thankful for his job in the ETC, his current health and he was thankful for us, the international and local staff teams from the Makeni ETC. He remained hopeful, he remained grateful. Who am I to do any different?

Chris Wooster
Chris Wooster
That I suppose is how I’ve changed as a result of working in Sierra Leone. Before I left I would have to look hard for Gods blessings in my life, whereas now I only need to open my eyes to see the blessings God grants to me on a daily basis. The strangest thing is that now I am aware of how unworthy of them I am. Every time I see these good things in my life I am reminded of someone I know in Sierra Leone who is twice the person I am and who doesn’t have them. It is a strange and truly humbling experience, and my greatest fear is taking these good things for granted again. That is why I and, I suspect, others who served with me are so uncomfortable with being hailed as heroes upon our return.

Yes, we went out to West Africa to help, but in so doing we came into contact with people whose lives have been torn apart time and time again, but who get back up, and who get on with living their lives with a renewed hope and focus. We went to fight Ebola and came home. They continue to live under its shadow and fight the virus. As such, in my eyes they are the true heroes. Even now, after the entirety of West Africa has been declared Ebola free at least once, the risk of catching Ebola remains a very real and present danger. In recognition of this, many agencies including PHE remain in Sierra Leone to not only fight and contain Ebola, but to ensure that Sierra Leone is left ready to stop this, and many other diseases, from ever again becoming such a menace to their people.

Chris