Exemplary action: Kiwoko hospital is prepared for deadly virus threats
(Photo: © Alison Fletcher/CMS)By Alison Fletcher, department head at Kiwoko
Hospital, Uganda
In May, reports circulated that there had been an outbreak of Ebola about 50 kilometres away.
One young girl had died and several others in her village were under surveillance.
Ebola haemorrhagic fever is a highly contagious virus with no known cure or vaccine.
There are four different strains, and even though the one identified in this outbreak was one of the least fatal, it still has a 50–60 per cent mortality rate.
The virus is transmitted through any contact with body fluids, and as a patient with symptoms is usually extremely sick with unexplained bleeding, vomiting, and diarrhoea, anyone attending to the patient can be at risk of contracting it.
Contact even with bed linen that the patient has been lying on can infect someone. The people most at risk of contracting the virus are the patient’s relatives and healthcare workers.
Kiwoko hospital staff worked quickly to get an isolation ward ready, in case we needed it. We had no prior experience of doing such a thing, but thankfully we had a small, empty ward.
Over a few days, we worked to seal it, cordon it off, get bed spaces and equipment ready, and set up decontaminating procedures, including a storage area for dead bodies.
The head of the national Ebola taskforce came to the district and was impressed with what we had done.
Rather than assigning staff to the ward, any staff willing to work there were welcomed. Around 10 brave and dedicated nurses volunteered. They told me they had felt nervous initially, but that they wanted to care for these potentially very sick patients.
As of 8 June, we have had two suspect cases, and the ward was used for one of them. The critical time has passed and soon the ward will no longer be needed.
While you might think all this work was a waste of time as we’ve had only two patients, I would strongly disagree. The experience has been valuable to the hospital in many ways. Perhaps on a most basic level, we now have shared knowledge of setting up an isolation ward and doing it a second time will therefore be easier.
We have photos and even a video of how the ward is set up, and we know what equipment is required. Being proactive has helped in a number of ways, namely raising our profile within the district and nationally as a place of good practice and patient care.
It has also helped the hospital community see how we can work together through a potentially difficult time. It is good to see a new generation of Kiwoko nursing staff taking responsibility and showing such dedication.
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