Local workers have gone on strike in an overcrowded Ebola ward at a major district hospital in Sierra Leone’s disease-stricken east over claims the government is failing to pay them.
Up to 80 workers crowded the entrance compound to the hospital on Friday, deserting their posts and bringing operations at the Ebola treatment ward to a standstill. The workers were peaceful but frustrated.
The action comes after several other strikes at the same hospital by staff protesting poor working conditions, infection rates among colleagues and rates of pay they say do not make up for the risks they take.
The workers were recruited nationally to boost staff numbers at Kenema Government Hospital, where they operate inside a tented ‘high-risk’ zone as nurses and support staff tasked with treating the sick, disinfecting contaminated equipment, cleaning faeces, vomit and bloodm, and removing and burying dead bodies.
“I started working here one month ago and we have been paid nothing for the last two weeks,” Umaru, a hygienist, told Al Jazeera. “We have stopped everybody from working until we receive our risk incentive.”
The hospital is a critical facility catering to a population of several hundred thousand and began admitting the first Ebola cases in Sierra Leone because it was thought to be the only place with appropriate equipment.
The Ebola facility was set up early this summer on the same site as ordinary medical operations but since the outbreak began most other non-Ebola wards stand deserted and many workers have fled.
Staff deaths
Remaining staff say more than 38 nurses and doctors have been infected and died at this site since the outbreak began, among them renowned physician Dr Sheik Umar Khan.
Ebola support staff are supposed to be paid 500,000SLL ($110) per week but have been working for free in Kenema for the past two weeks.
The Ebola facility there is over capacity with about 80 patients being treated and new cases arriving every day.
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