Her father. Her mother.
Her sister. Her cousin. Fatu took care of them all, single-handedly
feeding them, cleaning them and giving them medications.
And she did so with
remarkable success. Three out of her four patients survived. That's a
25% death rate -- considerably better than the estimated Ebola death rate of 70%.
Fatu, who's in her
final year of nursing school, invented her own equipment. International
aid workers heard about Fatu's "trash bag method" and are now teaching
it to other West Africans who can't get into hospitals and don't have
protective gear of their own.
Every day, several times a
day for about two weeks, Fatu put trash bags over her socks and tied
them in a knot over her calves. Then she put on a pair of rubber boots
and then another set of trash bags over the boots.
She wrapped her hair in a
pair of stockings and over that a trash bag. Next she donned a raincoat
and four pairs of gloves on each hand, followed by a mask.
It was an arduous and time-consuming process, but Fatu was religious about it, never cutting corners.
UNICEF Spokeswoman Sarah Crowe said Fatu is amazing.
"Essentially this is a
tale of how communities are doing things for themselves," Crowe said.
"Our approach is to listen and work with communities and help them do
the best they can with what they have."
#sources#
No comments:
Post a Comment