Ebola: Surviving Survival - Life after recovery

Médecins Sans Frontières                                     April 13, 2015

Dr Maria Barstch spends her days in the small house that serves as MSF’s Ebola survivor clinic in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The peak of the epidemic may have passed in Sierra Leone but new cases continue to emerge almost every day, and with new cases come new survivors. While they are relieved to have defeated the deadly virus, some survivors are facing other debilitating symptoms of the so called “post-Ebola syndrome.”

                   People wait for a consultation at MSF’s survivor clinic in Freetown. Photo: Sophie McNamara/MSF

...MSF has also opened a survivor clinic in Liberia, housed at the site of MSF’s new pediatric hospital in Monrovia. In both Liberia and Sierra Leone, many survivors have previously sought treatment at local public or private hospitals and clinics but were refused care as soon as staff knew they were Ebola survivors.

“They are afraid of us. Even when you show your survival certificate people take a step back and say they cannot do anything for you,” says Jestina Dorley, one of the  patients who survived Ebola at ELWA 3 in Monrovia. For other survivors, money is another constraint with Ebola having left them without jobs and support systems. Even basics like food and shelter, let alone healthcare, are a real struggle.

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http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-surviving-survival-life-after-recovery