Johannesburg - A South African delegation consisting of the government, corporate entities and NGOs is preparing to establish a hospital in Sierra Leone to offer assistance with the Ebola epidemic.
The venture is led by the Department of Health and involves the SANDF, health-care group Netcare, corporates and NGOs.
The various organisations came together at a meeting on Friday at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in Sandton, where Netcare chief executive Dr Richard Friedland pledged to support the initiative.
A decision was made to fund and resource a 40-bed South African tent hospital in the West African country.
This came a day after the UN Security Council declared the Ebola outbreak in Africa a “threat to international peace and security”, calling on all member states to provide urgent resources and assistance to help tackle the crisis.
“The Ebola pandemic is a humanitarian crisis of tragic proportions, not only affecting the populations and healthcare workers in Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Senegal, but is extending beyond these countries’ borders.
“We commend the South African Department of Health for its efforts to help combat this outbreak,” Friedland said.
Netcare would be donating four ambulances to be deployed in West Africa and would contribute to the planning and execution of the initiative.
Friedland said the hospital group had also done thorough risk assessments and triage of any suspected cases referred for admission to Netcare facilities.
“Even though there is no Ebola outbreak in South Africa, and no confirmed Ebola case at any South African hospital, Netcare has developed a set of comprehensive clinical pathways in preparation for such an eventuality,” said Dr Anchen Laubscher, the medical director of Netcare.
They consult closely with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, and training has been conducted in all Netcare’s emergency departments to ensure readiness.
The collaboration comes as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) released the latest figures on Ebola.
There have been 562 deaths in Sierra Leone so far, with 1 620 confirmed Ebola cases. MSF said there were on average 25 new confirmed cases reported each day, while there was a severe shortage of isolation and treatment centres.
The country has been through a three-day lockdown since Friday that involved people being confined to their homes, while 30 000 government health staff made door-to-door visits.
AFP reported on Monday that the lockdown had led to the discovery of 150 new cases of the deadly virus and about 70 bodies previously unaccounted for.
“We have an overflow of bodies which we still need to bury, but this has been an everyday occurrence since the Ebola outbreak… Now at least we have about 150 new cases,” Steven Gaojia, the head of the country’s emergency operation centre, said late on Sunday.
The country’s chief medical officer said up to 70 bodies had been uncovered in and around the capital, Freetown.
He added that the latest results for the whole country were likely to push up the figures significantly.
Health Minister Abubakarr Fofanah said one of the successes of the action was to cut down on night burials.
Funeral services were being held in families trying to conceal the fact that there had been an Ebola patient in the household, he explained.
The Star