Nurse Natalie Mounter quit her job in the UK and headed to the heart of the epidemic to volunteer in a hospital in Freetown. Here, we publish her diary entry after her first day...
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<div>**Read the 32-year-old's full story in our February
issue of GLAMOUR, out 1 January 2015.**
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<div>Last night, I flew into the city. By the
time we'd driven in a
rickety minibus across the city to my new home, a simple room in a
guesthouse, I feel excited, daunted, exhausted - and a very long
way from home.
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<div>In the morning, I meet another English
volunteer, Stacey, and we're picked up by a driver who will take us
to the hospital every day. As we pass through the streets, signs
of Ebola are everywhere. There are buckets of chlorine
outside every shop. Street hawkers sell large bottles of Dettol,
and signs say, 'Stop Ebola Now'. I try not to feel
nervous, but I'm shaky when we arrive at a simple, low-rise
building - Connaught Hospital.
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<div>After an induction, which explains how to
keep ourselves safe from Ebola during everyday life -
minimal touching of anyone, no shaking hands, no touching our own
faces - we're shown around the hospital. I
notice posters paying tribute to medical staff who've recently
died. I stop in front of one: Sarah, a local
nurse, who was 32 - the same age as me.
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<div>I'm told that between ten and 20 people
arrive at the hospital each day showing symptoms of Ebola. Our
role is to care for as many as possible, in an isolation unit,
while they await test results. If they have Ebola, they're
taken to a specialist treatment
centre.
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<div>A volunteer doctor shows me how to put on my
personal protective equipment (PPE). Over my hospital scrubs, I
pull on a plastic jumpsuit, an apron, wellies, a face mask, a visor
and several pairs of gloves. Robing and disrobing is a laborious
business and we have to do it every time we enter and leave the
isolation ward.
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When we disrobe, we must be vigilant not to touch anything else - a
mistake could be deadly. This is when we're most likely to infect
ourselves. Today, we mostly spend getting used to our new working
conditions. Tomorrow,
we'll be working
in the isolation unit - 16 beds where patients infected
with Ebola lie alone, scared and in
pain. Our aim is to try to help, giving
out painkillers, antibiotics and oral rehydration salts (ORS), but
since there's no cure for Ebola all we can do is treat
the symptoms with the scant resources
available
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<div>By the time Stacey and I return to the
guesthouse, we're completely exhausted. We sit on my balcony,
overlooking one of the
city's slums, and chat about
how massive the outbreak is - and how overwhelming it
feels.
<div>*Natalie is volunteering with the King's Sierra Leone
Partnership, a project set up by King's Health Partners, a
collaboration between King's College London and three NHS
trusts.*
<div>To support the King's Sierra Leone Partnership, go to kslp.org.uk/get-involved/donate
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