After a rapid presentation of needs (see the articles on the site of 30/31 October), four priorities were identified.

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Famiglia in quarantena

First priority : to supply a laboratory able to carry out screening for cases of Ebola with qualified staff and rigorously controller by an expert.

Reason: the nearest institution is more than 300 km from Makeni (the district of Bombali). In the whole of Sierra Leone there are only four laboratories that are able to diagnose this disease and they are practically besieged every day by hundreds of people.

The proximity of a diagnostic centre to Bombali would make the discharge of patients at treatment centres easier, thereby releasing space for suspected cases.

According to the analysis of the United Kingdom, another month will be needed, or even more, before it will be possible to build this centre because of the weakness of the health-care system of the country and its bureaucracy. And this while patients die every day.

Expectations: with a diagnostic centre in Bombali one could optimise the time needed for the screening of suspected cases and Ebola-positive cases could receive greater attention.

Note: The Magbenteh Hospital (with the support of the Swiss-Sierra Leone Development  Foundation) is preparing  a collection centre and a treatment centre that will be operational by the end of November.

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Second  Priority:  the reopening of the Holy Spirit Hospital of Makeni.

Reason:  the quality of treatment that this hospital is able to assure to people who have a desperate need for medical treatment  for maladies other than Ebola.

The number of people who have died of causes unconnected with Ebola is even more alarming. Here people die at childbirth, of haemorrhage fevers (malaria, Lassa fever) and of other endemic diseases.

This hospital has a good number of health-care professionals who are able to face up to the problem and return the hospital to its normal state of work.

Expectations: the  adequate and intensive training of staff in relation to prevention, the management of critical cases and a period of being flanked by experts is now operational.

The special transportation of identified or suspected cases from the hospital to a reception centre is available.

The hospital will have a regular supply of PPEs. A new hospital protocol for the control of infectious diseases has been adopted in order to regulate the work and the behaviour of the personnel.

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Holy Spirit Hospital di Makeni

Third Priority: support for activity involving sensitisation (prevention and humanitarian support for families in quarantine) and the pastoral activity of the Diocesan Task Force (DTF).

Reason: the principal reasons for the spread of EVD are: denial, by people, of the existence of Ebola in their communities; burial practices; family customs; and fear itself.

Hitherto the DTF has achieved its first objective, that is to say the coordination of a workshop and seminars at a parish level (25 parishes). Now the parishes must mobilise but progress is very slow because of incapacities at the level of government and the scarcity of financial resources.

Expectations: this careful monitoring by the DTF with its own personnel is underway in each parish. All of the personnel who have entered the fray for the Ebola emergency have received training in the management of these projects. All of them are fully involved in this activity with the full support of the DTF.

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Fourth Priority: the post-Ebola scenario: psycho-social and pastoral action.

Reason: given the gravity of this epidemic and the stigma attached to the survivors, it is envisaged that the trauma will become a graver problem in particular amongst students and adults. The health-care personnel need psycho-social assistance.

Expectations: this programme for psycho-social action, like the formation courses, will be addressed to catechists, to young volunteers and to hospital personnel.

Ospedale Holy Spirit di Makeni

The CTF sent Mrs Anita Ennis, the vice-President of the Lay Camillian Family, for six weeks to Makeni in Sierra Leone. She arrived on 26 October and at the present time she is living in a building for guests of the Holy Spirit Hospital.  As soon as she arrived she began her work by drawing up a report on the health-care personnel (jobs, qualifications…) and reviewing the hospital policies and the protocols in order to attempt an initial assessment of the technical structure of the hospital so that in the near future it will be able to meet the Ebola emergency with a high-quality response. All these initiatives have been engaged in with a view to the reopening of the hospital to the general public. At the present time, only the surgery section is working and it has a minimum number of staff.

As regards the project to create a diagnostic centre, this project ahs been entrusted to Dr. Vittorio Colizzi MD PhD, a professor of immunology and the director of the UNESCO chair of biotechnologies at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and to the President of the Biotechnologies Group Tor Vergata of the Eurobiopark. The first meeting has already taken place – at the generalate house of the Camillians (the Magdalene House) on 28 October of this year.

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We thank Anita Ennis, the Vice-President of the Lay Camillian Family, and Fr. Aris Miranda for the photographs