In Liberia, a newly opened Ebola Clinic is a scene of pitiful chaos. Outside the clinic are several ambulances that each hold several Ebola patients needing immediate treatment. Even more patients, however, are found lying on the ground too weak to even get inside the clinic.
The newly opened Island Clinic which is on Bushrod Island somewhere near Monrovia, Liberia's capital, is a facility that has 120 Ebola treatment beds. While the aforementioned figure is a good one, health officials and volunteers in the clinic said that their facility is unable to tend to the plethora of patients who are waiting outside - whether lying inside their ambulances or right on the ground.
Most of those who are lying on the ground outside the clinic previously came out of the ambulances but are way too weak to make it into the clinic. A huge number of this ill patients do not even have clothes on or are naked from the waist down because of severe diarrhea that is caused by the virus.
Because the virus easily spreads through contact with bodily fluids from an infected individual, workers in the clinic are hesitant to help up those who are lying outside as this requires close body contact.
This new Ebola clinic is a joint effort by the Liberian government and the World Health Organization. Both parties, however, after finding out that there are several patients lying on the rocky ground outside waiting for help are alarmed about the situation.
Peter Graaf, WHO representative in Liberia, says that the organization will work out a way for expansion in order to treat as many patients as possible immediately as the current facility is unable to efficiently do so because unavailability of facilities has become another reason for Ebola-stricken people not to seek help immediately.