One Doctor's Campaign To Pay Those Who Risked Their Lives
ARUN RATH, HOST:
As the Ebola crisis raged in West Africa last year, many America doctors went to help. Dr. Nahid Bhadelia of Boston University went to Sierra Leone several times, serving alongside local health workers in the city of Kenema. This spring back in the U.S., she learned something upsetting.
DR. NAHID BHADELIA: I ran into Amy Maxmen, who was doing a story for Newsweek on the fact that many of the healthcare workers in Sierra Leone were not getting paid despite their work in Ebola treatment units.
RATH: She found out that many of the local health workers in Kenema hadn't been paid for months. These were people who had risked their lives on the front lines of Ebola treatment units. Dr. Bhadelia took matters into her own hands and started raising money for them on the GoFundMe website. Her goal is to raise $50,000, but she decided to give money to help workers as it comes in.
BHADELIA: After thinking about it for a while, struggling about what the right thing to do was - because it is a complicated issue. You know, you don't want to create an alternative system of pay or anything along those lines. I decided that, for me, this was similar to raising money for family and friends here who are in need.
RATH: Now, so much money flowed into West Africa during the outbreak last year. Why didn't more of that get to the healthcare workers?
BHADELIA: It's been said that less than two percent of the 3.3 billion dollars that was assigned to Ebola response actually made it to national healthcare workers. And the reasons for why not are complicated. You know, they vary from corruption to actually just a lack of good administrative system. It was very hard for a lot of healthcare workers to get the money because their names got left off the list of people who had worked in these units, so simple things, you know.
RATH: Now, you've been raising money since June. You went back to Sierra Leone to distribute some of that money to the workers in July. Talk about how that went, how they responded.
BHADELIA: It was one of the hardest and most powerful things I've done in my life because the initial experience was so hard. I think we all bonded, you know, over that. And when I went back, part of what was important to me and to them was not just the money, but to actually get their stories out. You know, I heard from them over and over again, A, it's surprising to us because we feel forgotten because we your soldiers on the front line, and it seems like nobody remembers that we helped beat this epidemic. But I think what surprised them was the fact that people across the ocean opened up their purses and donated and thought of them. And I think that moved so many of them. And the second thing that I think is important to state is they all said as much as we appreciate your help, what we actually want is a job, and we want steady pay.
RATH: Obviously, you're not in position now to be able to pay everyone who deserves the money. How do you go about deciding, you know, who gets the money first?
BHADELIA: Based on who I know that I've worked with, you know. It is truly a friends and family situation. A lot of these folks were people I worked with last summer, and we're basing it on a list of healthcare workers that was validated as those that worked at Kenema over the last year so. And I'm just going down the line beyond the ones that I know personally. And as you said, I think the hardest thing for me is I can't pay everybody. And that is the worst feeling in the world. So that's why I'm hoping the $50,000 that we're trying to raise is actually based on being able to give about $600 to all of the people who are on my list that worked in Kenema.
RATH: Do think these healthcare workers will eventually receive the money they were promised from the government?
BHADELIA: They may. Unfortunately, it's actually pretty common in West Africa, and Sierra Leone in particular, for healthcare workers to not to be paid for many months in a row and then part of it coming through. But this group of healthcare workers was part of an epicenter in this epidemic. Fifty of them actually acquired Ebola, and 35 of them passed away.
RATH: That's an awful situation for people who had done such heroic work, but even beyond that, what does this situation mean for public health, for stopping future outbreaks?
BHADELIA: The important thing to remember here is Ebola was a litmus test for us, as a world, to determine if emerging pathogens can really shake the foundations of our health systems at the front lines. And you can't get healthcare workers to be motivated to come help you with the next epidemic if you can't pay them. Until we resolve the administrative issues, the governance issues, it will always be part of the weakness in our response to epidemic.
RATH: Dr. Nahid Bhadelia is an infectious disease doctor at Boston University. Thank you so much.
BHADELIA: Thank you for having me.
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