Grit in the times of adversity
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
When the whole planet is struck by something like Covid-19, there are so many questions that arise. In my mind, I oscillate between the need to ‘make productive use of time and do something’ and feeling small, helpless and guilt ridden from my privilege. In times like these, I am reminded of the incredible love, persistence, grit and hope of individuals at ELWA (Eternal love wins Africa) hospital and their choices in the face of the Ebola outbreak.
I usually prepare for the context of my research by watching documentaries, talking to someone who has been there and learn some greetings in the language. Looking back, nothing could prepare me for the experience I was to have in Monrovia, that saw one of the largest outbreaks of Ebola.
“We are raising a generation of orphans in Monrovia” said Matthew, who picked me up from the airport. “Most families lost someone, most of us did not get to see or bury our loved ones who passed away.” I was left with nothing to respond.
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
The next morning I met nurse Janet, who recounted the days when the Ebola outbreak started. Her husband presented her with two choices: leave the job and stay at home with family, or choose to treat Ebola patients and not come home, as it puts all of them at risk. As I listened to her, I tried imagining her state of mind in making such a choice. Nurse Janet said, “In that moment it became very clear to me that I needed to serve my people. Fear and misinformation made it hard for the government to control people, healthcare workers in hazmat suits were chased away or beaten up, Ebola treatment units were burnt down. I thought that perhaps they will trust me, if I stay, since they have seen me serve for a few decades now.”
Nurse Janet decided to leave home, treat patients and stay at the hospital. She soon contracted Ebola and was treated at the same hospital. She recovered and went back to serving patients till they saw the last of Ebola case in Monrovia.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Nurse Mercy is a very respected and loved hygiene specialist at ELWA. She moved to Monrovia along with her husband in the 80s. During the peak of the outbreak, her job was to ensure adherence to hygiene protocols: which means to check if protective gear on doctors and nurses were intact when they came out of the treatment units, spray all doctors and nurses as they came out — to decontaminate them, and reassure them that they were safe. “ I felt that it was not hard to spot if the gloves had slid off the suit due to sweat from the heat. I felt that I could train someone quickly, and do some real work inside the treatment unit. In my restlessness, I asked the head nurse to let me treat patients directly. She gently refused, held my hand and told me that this was not only about ensuring protocols. These nurses and doctors looked upto me, and felt safe when I reassured them through decontamination. It helped them sleep, even for a little while, before starting long and gruelling days of service.”
On one such day, as Mercy was decontaminating the treatment staff, strong winds caused some of the spray to bounce off a suit, and hit her face. “I immediately ran to sanitise my face, but in my heart of hearts, I knew it was late.” After recovering from the deadliest Zaire strain of Ebola, nurse Mercy came back again to ELWA and continued her role of hygiene specialist through the last patient.
Mercy asked me if I would like to come with her to see the now abandoned treatment unit that was about to be taken down to build living quarters for resident doctors. She showed me how they established the treatment unit, used windows for family members to come and share words of encouragement to family members in quarantine. She showed me the spot where they had to build a tent to contain bodies because there was no space for people who were living. She recounted the horror and trauma of the doctors, overwhelmed and helpless, unable to enter that building after they saw the last of Ebola patients. Living through this experience, Mercy recounts the hardest part of her experience being “When we couldn’t accept more patients at the hospital, we set up temporary quarantine with the help from folks at Medicine Sans Frontiers. When even that was not enough, we had to turn people away.”
“Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.”
Hamza has been working at ELWA since he was 19. “I never finished school, fell into bad company. My father let me assist the pharmacy here, hoping I would start being responsible.” Three decades later, Hamza was instrumental in setting up the testing laboratory for ELWA during the Ebola outbreak. “We really needed to reduce testing time. Earlier we were sending samples to another lab, it was taking 3 days to get results, the staff was taking huge risks to transport samples.” Hamza now heads the infectious disease laboratory facility that is doing breakthrough work for hospitals across West Africa.
“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
Janet, Mercy and Hamza define the legacy of choices that we have the potential to create in such times. Whether or not, or how much privilege we have, how big or small our jobs may seem in such uncertain times, our choices are the certainty that we may find refuge in.
Quotes from the book “Man’s search for meaning” by Victor E Frankl
Note: Names and identity are changed to honour confidentiality