http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMpdRM1h-tQ

Kofi Annan is a Ghanian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (January 1997-December 2006). He was co-recipient with the United Nations of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. In this video, Annan expresses his disappointment with how the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been handled. He says: “I’m disappointed, first of all, with the international community for not moving faster, because we are – we are in this world we are in it together.”

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Kofi Annan On The 2014 Ebola Outbreak appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkYFo8-AUhg

In this video Hawa, a 14-year-old Ebola survivor from Sierra Leone, recounts her experience of catching Ebola and surviving it. Of first coming down with the disease, she says: “At first I felt a pain in my chest. It was my heart, it was beating so fast. It was so painful. I used to cry. I had headaches and my body was becoming hot. I didn’t know it was Ebola.” Hawa lost both her aunt and younger brother to Ebola, and mentions that the rest of her family also came down with the disease. Of her recovery, she says: “It feels good because now I can see my friends. My other aunt, mother, father, brother, and uncle are here. I can see them all. I can be happy again.”

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14-Year-Old Ebola Survivor: “I Can Be Happy Again” appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnkknjMOiHs

In the context of healthcare and addressing urgent medical needs, one cannot overlook the significance of accessible and well-equipped urgent care centers. These vital healthcare facilities, such as urgent care Elmhurst, NY, serve as crucial pillars in bridging the gap between immediate medical attention and comprehensive healthcare systems. They play an integral role in providing prompt, quality care to patients who require urgent medical attention but may not necessarily require the resources of a hospital emergency room. By delivering timely and efficient care, urgent care centers contribute to a more equitable healthcare landscape, addressing the inequalities in healthcare access that persist in many communities.

Paul Farmer is a physician and co-founder of Partners in Health (PIH), an international social justice and health organization. Farmer is best known for his work in providing healthcare to rural and under-resourced areas in the developing world. In this video, Farmer has recently returned from a trip to Sierra Leone and sits down to answer questions about the Ebola outbreak taking place there. When asked what we should understand about this outbreak, Farmer says: “I think the most important thing to understand is that this is a reflection of long-standing and growing inequalities of access to basic systems of healthcare delivery, and that includes the staff, the stuff and again these systems…. If you go down to each of these epidemics, that are of course one epidemic, and you ask the question ‘Well do they have the staff, stuff and systems that they need to respond?’ and the answer is no.” He also speaks of the importance of supportive care, pointing to Emory University as an example of how supportive care is a vital tool to successfully combating the disease.

In conclusion, the insightful words of Paul Farmer shed light on the underlying issue of healthcare inequalities and the urgent need for comprehensive systems to address them. His experiences in combating the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone highlight the importance of having well-trained healthcare staff, adequate resources, and robust healthcare delivery systems in place. Just as urgent care centers like urgent care Elmhurst, NY, play a critical role in bridging gaps in healthcare access, Farmer’s emphasis on supportive care underscores the significance of holistic approaches in combating diseases effectively. By recognizing and addressing these long-standing disparities, we can strive toward a more equitable and resilient healthcare landscape for all.

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Paul Farmer Discusses the 2014 Ebola Outbreak appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3eRprLfzc0

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, treated the first two U.S. citizens to contract Ebola in Liberia. On receiving the patients, Dr. Marshall Lyon said “The first thing that goes through your mind is ‘this is a virus which is associated with a 90% mortality’. And it sort of gets you a little bit, and then sort of the rational training kicks in and you realize that we’re not going to expose ourselves to this.” Dr. Bruce Ribner, meanwhile, talks about the negative e-mails he received about bringing the patients back to the United States, saying: “They were accusing me of threatening the health of the United States… I was pretty comfortable in what we were doing, and it was concerning to me that there were this many people who had this much misinformation about this infectious disease.”

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Ebola: Emory Staff Talk About Treating Patients appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRFrxpdbt44

In 2014, Nancy Writebol was working in Liberia with NGO Samaritan’s Purse. She became the second U.S. citizen to contract the disease while working in Liberia. In this video, Writebol recalls learning of her diagnosis from her husband, David: “He came into the room and he said ‘Nancy I need to tell you some things’… He said ‘Kent has Ebola.’ And I was just sick when David told me. And then after I kinda regrouped from that, he said ‘And Nancy, you do too.’” Writebol was given an experimental serum, ZMapp, to help combat the disease. She was the first human to ever receive the serum. Of its impact, Writebol says: “I don’t know that you can say only the serum is what works. The supportive care is really critical.”

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Nancy Writebol On Surviving Ebola appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01iSy0Zwk3Q

In 1976, Doctor Peter Piot was the first to discover Ebola while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine. Along with his team, Dr. Piot travelled to Zaire in 1976 to help stop the outbreak that was taking place. In this video, Dr. Piot shares statistics that highlight the gravity of the 2014 Ebola outbreak: “In thirty-eight years since the first outbreak, Ebola has killed at most 1500 people. That’s like thirty to forty a year.” Speaking of the widespread concern about the spread of Ebola, Piot proclaims: “I would be happy to sit next to someone with Ebola in the tube as long as that person is not ill.”

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Doctor Who Discovered Ebola Discusses 2014 Outbreak appeared first on Witnify.

“We have been averaging about 100 deaths per day, and still keeping it up. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a new mixed infection here, but what I don’t know.”

Red Cross in Washington, D.C. during the influenza pandemic. (1918). Source: Library of Congress.

This letter from a physician stationed at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, to a fellow physician friend, describes the overwhelming task of trying to care for and combat a disease whose identity he still did not know.

The letter describes in detail the symptoms of patients, the workload of the doctors, and the accommodations made for the deceased:

Camp Devens, Mass.
Surgical Ward No. 16
29 September 1918

My dear Burt,

It is more than likely that you would be interested in the news of this place, for there is a possibility that you will be assigned here for duty, so having a minute between rounds I will try to tell you a little about the situation here as I have seen it in the last week.

As you know, I have not seen much pneumonia in the last few years in Detroit, so when I came here I was somewhat behind in the niceties of the Army way of intricate diagnosis. Also to make it good, I have had for the last week an exacerbation of my old ‘Ear Rot’ as Artie Ogle calls it, and could not use a stethoscope at all, but had to get by on my ability to ‘spot’ ‘em thru my general knowledge of pneumonias…

Camp Devens is near Boston, and has about 50,000 men, or did have before this epidemic broke loose. It also has the base hospital for the Division of the Northeast. This epidemic started about four weeks ago, and has developed so rapidly that the camp is demoralized and all ordinary work is held up till it has passed. All assemblages of soldiers taboo. These men start with what appears to be an attack of la grippe or influenza, and when brought to the hospital they very rapidly develop the most viscous type of pneumonia that has ever been seen. Two hours after admission they have the mahogany spots over the cheek bones, and a few hours later you can begin to see the cyanosis extending from their ears and spreading all over the face, until it is hard to distinguish the coloured men from the white. It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes, and it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate. It is horrible. One can stand it to see one, two or twenty men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies sort of gets on your nerves. We have been averaging about 100 deaths per day, and still keeping it up. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a new mixed infection here, but what I don’t know. My total time is taken up hunting rales, rales dry or moist, sibilant or crepitant or any other of the hundred things that one may find in the chest, they all mean but one thing here — pneumonia — and that means in about all cases death.

Influenza victims in a hospital near Fort Riley, Kansas (1918). Source: The Associated Press.

The normal number of doctors here is about 25 and that has been increased to over 250, all of whom (of course excepting me) have temporary orders — ‘Return to your proper station on completion of work’ — Mine says, ‘Permanent Duty,’ but I have been in the Army just long enough to learn that it doesn’t always mean what it says. So I don’t know what will happen to me at the end of this. We have lost an outrageous number of nurses and doctors, and the little town of Ayer is a sight. It takes special trains to carry away the dead. For several days there were no coffins and the bodies piled up something fierce, we used to go down to the morgue (which is just back of my ward) and look at the boys laid out in long rows. It beats any sight they ever had in France after a battle. An extra long barracks has been vacated for the use of the morgue, and it would make any man sit up and take notice to walk down the long lines of dead soldiers all dressed up and laid out in double rows. We have no relief here; you get up in the morning at 5:30 and work steady till about 9:30 p.m., sleep, then go at it again. Some of the men of course have been here all the time, and they are tired.

If this letter seems somewhat disconnected overlook it, for I have been called away from it a dozen times, the last time just now by the Officer of the Day, who came in to tell me that they have not as yet found at any of the autopsies any case beyond the red hepatitis stage. It kills them before it gets that far.

I don’t wish you any hard luck Old Man, but do wish you were here for a while at least. It’s more comfortable when one has a friend about. The men here are all good fellows, but I get so damned sick o’ pneumonia that when I eat I want to find some fellow who will not ‘talk shop’ but there ain’t none, no how. We eat it, sleep it, and dream it, to say nothing of breathing it 16 hours a day. I would be very grateful indeed it you would drop me a line or two once in a while, and I will promise you that if you ever get into a fix like this, I will do the same for you.

Each man here gets a ward with about 150 beds (mine has 168), and has an Asst. Chief to boss him, and you can imagine what the paper work alone is — fierce — and the Government demands all paper work be kept up in good shape. I have only four day nurses and five night nurses (female) a ward-master, and four orderlies. So you can see that we are busy. I write this in piecemeal fashion. It may be a long time before I can get another letter to you, but will try.

Good-by old Pal,

‘God be with you till we meet again’

Keep the Bouells open,

Roy

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