An MSF psychologist reveals the trauma of dealing with the Ebola outbreak for medics, cleaners and the families of the dead
Ane Bjøru Fjeldsæter is a 31-year-old psychologist from Trondheim, Norway. For the past month, she has been working for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, helping to fight the largest ever outbreak of Ebola, which has killed more than 600 people in three countries. She provides support and counselling to patients and their families, as well as to the staff whose job it is to deal with the dead bodies.
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 counselling and support.
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