From Chapter 4: Treating Ebola and non-Ebola patients at Connaught Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone in Operation Ebola: Surgical care during the West African outbreak
Thaim B. Kamara, MD, FWACS
In mid-May 2014 I convened an emergency meeting of the Connaught Hospital Management Committee. News reached Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, that Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was in the Eastern District of Kailahun. This initial meeting led to the selection of a site on the hospital grounds for an eight-bed EVD isolation unit for suspected and confirmed patients. A senior physician was chosen as EVD lead.
A few days later the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) dispatched a delegation headed by the Chief Nursing Officer to assess our preparedness in the event of an EVD outbreak in Freetown. With the simple isolation unit already prepared, a positive impression was made. EVD was previously unknown locally and we had no prior experience. The small towns where the outbreak was initially concentrated seemed too far away to be of much concern. We were sadly mistaken.
To read more, get a copy of Operation Ebola: Surgical care during the West African Outbreak: available from Amazon or Johns Hopkins University Press
Operation Health: A series of books on surgery and global health from Johns Hopkins University Press 