The Ebola Fight’s HR Problem
Original article from: Marketplace posted on October 27, 2014. By Dan Gorenstein
The federal government and the states are still figuring out just what they should do with health workers who return from treating Ebola patients in West Africa.
And while that question is part logistics and part politics, there is a pretty big human resources question in there, too. How do groups like Doctors Without Borders recruit healthcare workers who are urgently needed to contain the outbreak?
“From the beginning of the outbreak until now, it’s been difficult to find people who have the experience, the willingness and the flexibility. It’s not an easy ask,” says United Nations spokesperson Nyka Alexander.
The U.S. and Britain both plan to build Ebola treatment centers in West Africa. Countries and individuals like Paul Allen along with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan and Bill and Melinda Gates are pledging millions in aid. And Cuba, China and Ethiopia are among the other nations who are sending teams to West Africa.
But still the World Health Organization says several hundred more foreign medical workers are needed. Guinea, with the highest proportion of doctors among the three affected West African nations, has just 10 physicians per 100,000 people, compared to 240 in the United States.
Everyone agrees the way to keep the American public safe is to beat this virus over there. But no one agrees who should travel across the Atlantic to fight it. Most healthcare workers in the U.S aren’t going. Some may worry about getting sick, or wonder whether they have the right skills or think they’ll be treated like a pariah when they come back.