A Doctor’s Gift To The Brave Nurses Of Sierra Leone

It was a gift of about $600, to make up for wages that weren’t paid. A gesture of gratitude, it may be the encouragement embattled nurses need to continue working with the specter of Ebola ever-present.

In the darkest hours, bonds formed between Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious disease doctor from Boston University who volunteered to fight Ebola last year, and the West African nurses who cared for patients beside her.

Bhadelia’s local partners often went without the pay they were due during the outbreak, and Bhadelia felt a growing urge to support them after she returned to the U.S. Last month, she launched a crowdfund site to send her Sierra Leonean colleagues cash.

Their bond began in late August 2014, when Bhadelia arrived at Kenema Government Hospital in eastern Sierra Leone, as part of a team organized by the World Health Organization. By then, Ebola had killed hundreds of people, including West Africa’s only Ebola expert, Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, who headed the hospital’s Ebola ward. His team labored on, often without decent protective gear and the “hazard pay” they had been promised for the dangerous work.

Bhadelia was inspired by their bravery — and they, by her. One afternoon, Bhadelia shook with a wave of panic as she struggled to insert an intravenous line of fluid into a child in the throes of Ebola, while another child died beside her. A nurse in the ward, Issa French, gripped her arm, and steadied her. French later recalled, “When I realized what a sacrifice Dr. Nadia had made to come here and help us, I knew that I needed to keep working.”