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| Nurses talk near a poster (C) displaying a government message against Ebola, at a maternity hospital in Abidjan (Reuters / Luc Gnago) |
In the midst of an Ebola outbreak
Liberia’s nurses from the country’s largest hospital went on strike Monday.
Calling for higher salaries, they also demanded equipment to protect them from
the Ebola virus that has killed hundreds in Liberia.
The nurses will not go back to work
until they have “personal protective equipment (PPEs)”, the hazmat-style
suits that protect against the spread of the disease, AFP quoted a spokesman
for the strikers at Monrovia’s John F. Kennedy hospital, John Tugbeh, as
saying.
Despite Ebola being a deadly threat
– with 694 registered deaths in Liberia alone – local medics have not been
adequately protected against the infection, he said.
“From the
beginning of the Ebola outbreak we have not had any protective equipment to
work with. As result, so many doctors got infected by the virus. We have to
stay home until we get the PPEs,” Tugbeh said.
Last week, the head of the Centers
for Disease Control in the United States warned that the situation in West
Africa remains grim.
“I wish I didn’t have to say this, but it is going
get worse before it gets better,”
CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden told the Associated Press this week upon
completion of a trip to Liberia.
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