Ebola Health Workers In Sierra Leone Struggle With Emotions, Stigma

The Guardian: Ebola in Sierra Leone: battling sadness, fear and disgust on the frontline
Ane Bjøru Fjeldsæter, a psychologist working with Médecins sans Frontières (MSF)

“I was expecting the Ebola epidemic to be quite gruesome and unlike anything I had seen before. But I really didn’t expect its magnitude — this outbreak is enormous. In Sierra Leone, it killed off a lot of health workers before MSF even arrived. Not surprisingly, medical staff were reluctant to work with us at first. They’d never come across Ebola before — but at least they had previous experience of people suffering and people dying. But for the non-medical staff, like the hygienists — our hospital cleaners — it’s been a new and disturbing experience, and a large part of my work involves helping them with counseling and support. The hygienists have the hardest job of all because they are the ones dealing with the dead bodies…” (7/17).

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