Ebola Update: Lack of Care Sparks Protest among Sierra Leone Doctors

Following the death of the tenth local doctor from Ebola last week, over 90 members of the Sierra Leone's Junior Doctors Association have gone on partial strike in protest of the lack of care for local medics who caught the virus while on duty.  

The "alarming rate" in which local doctors are dying sparked the demand for a specialized unit with a dialysis machine for infected staff if they are not going to be evacuated.

"We have raised so many concerns and we have still not been listened to," Dr. Jeredine George, president of the doctor's association, told Reuters.

"We have decided to withhold the majority of our services... until the establishment of this facility."

Although the association forms the bulk of the local doctors fighting Ebola in the country, there has been discrepancy in the treatment they are receiving compared to foreign medical staff who are routinely transferred to Western facilities when they catch Ebola.     

Sierra Leone's deputy health minister, Madinatu Rahman, assured that the doctors' concerns are being addressed and that the facilities they requested would be operational by December 20 at the latest.

 "This is a crucial time, this is a crisis period. The whole world is here to help us so if we Sierra Leoneans don't put our shoulders to the wheel what will they think about us?" she said.

Ebola deaths among medical personnel in Sierra Leone have been reported to include at least 106 medical personnel, while some 250 more have died elsewhere in the region, mainly in Guinea and Liberia, the other two worst-affected countries.

The World Health Organization published figures on Monday showing that Sierra Leone had registered the highest number of cases in West Africa for the first time, with 7,798 compared with 7,719 in Liberia, writes The Guardian.

Sierra Leone has recorded about 1,742 Ebola deaths this year.