Ebola nightmare haunt Motswana hero
Baboki Kayawe | Friday June 12, 2015 13:36
“A lot of people died in my hands and in my sight,” says the man who gave up his lucrative Cape Town job to go and take Ebola by the horns in the West African region.
“I remember during my last shift, a three-year-old came into one of the holding places with her mother who died on the spot. The toddler was very healthy and I hoped she would survive but unfortunately she died after three days,” recalls an emotional Ishmael Mbulawa.
At the end of January, the 28-year-old Maitengwe-native jetted off to Freetown, Sierra Leone, as part of a group of South Africa-based doctors and nurses armed to fight the Ebola virus in the West African state.
He spent three months in Freetown, the red zone of a deadly epidemic that even today continues to add to its thousands of victims.
With the determination gleaming in his eyes, Ishmael says what kept him going during his stay in the red zone was the helplessness the people of Sierra Leone wore on their faces.
He was in the womb of an epidemic yes, but his mantra was always that: “people die everyday, people are getting infected everyday, people are living in fear, but they are looking to me.”
He adds that any obsession with fear had the potential of killing the little hope those who depended on health care workers had.
“If you are in a high-risk place, what comes to mind first is your safety. Whatever you touch, whatever you eat, you consistently ask yourself whether it is the right thing to do,” he says. A critical thinking mind, as well as a strong cognitive department are what it took to elude infection while remaining at the frontline of the deadly outbreak.
Ishmael, who vividly retells his encounter with the dying, as if it were yesterday, says a sound mindset, and the avoidance of sadness were his guardian angels in those dark days. “Sadness can have a serious impact on your thinking and those you intend to help,” says Ishmael.
“I witnessed people who walked themselves ably into the treatment centres but as the sun set, everything in them appeared crushed into helplessness.
“They were times when the helper became helpless too, but a positive mindset, fuelled me. “
Prior to plucking up the courage to fight with and for fellow Africans, Ishmael was a professional nurse based at Cape Town’s MediClinic. Prior to his departure, the young man had a difficult decision to make.
“The clinic management made it clear prior to my departure that they were not ready to handle the burden of having an employee in the red zone. Hence I had to resign. Upon my return to Cape Town, the position I had , had already been filled.”
With raw emotion in his voice, Ishmael goes back to his recollection of the blood bath in Sierra Leone. He was able to witness first hand how rigid cultural beliefs sent hundreds of thousands to their deaths.
“Though some degree of education and information had trickled down in the communities when we got to Sierra Leone, those people have very strong practices and beliefs that proliferated the death toll,” Ishmael says.
“When a family member passes on in West Africa, the dead body is bathed and that water is then used by the entire family to bath as well. The tradition is believed to remove bad luck or the spirit of death that befell the family.”
Sadly, what was intended to chase death away invited the Grim Reaper. This, he says, was the major source of cross infections and deaths.
The fact that the Ebola virus is difficult to control within a small family setting then means that it is a mammoth challenge to manage at a greater national level, he says.
“The worst thing for a family to do is to surrender a family member to a treatment centre with the full knowledge that their chances of reuniting are almost non-existent,” he says. Ishmael and his team were seen as sources of answers as the community sought question on the monster that had engulfed them. Many were clueless and demanded explanation from health care staff as to what Ebola really was, and how it came to be in their country.
“One of the things I made sure never to do in my explanations was to give false hope or promises that would never come to be. However, It wasn’t easy looking into someone’s eyes and telling them the truth about the Ebola virus.”
Within the devastation around him, a fresh low came when three of Ishmael’s team members became infected with the deadly virus.
“You can imagine the panic that crops in when this happens to the people whom you share everything with, do everything with as well as discuss issues with,” Ishmael says. Asked whether he never thought of surrendering when the hunter became the hunted, he says the fact that they were all successfully treated erased the slightest grain of fear in him.
“They were all white. And they all survived,” he says. His response prompts an interesting topic that many have raised. The race of Ebola. Throughout the deepest points of the crisis, reports appeared to singularly point to the fact that white were the only survivors of the scourge.
Ishmael is very reluctant to go into the issue of Ebola and race.
“I was told some white people died. Out of all those that I witnessed get infected, all survived, none died.
But I really don’t want to get into the race discussion right now.”Prior to their departure, the team spent two weeks in Gauteng being drilled in safety procedures, particularly around the protective gear that is the final frontier between health workers and the virus.Once on the field, Ishmael found that dressing up and undressing took quite some time.
“The protective gear consisted of a lot of elements, among them a protective overall, shower cap, helmet kind of headwear with reflective goggles, four layers of hand gloves, two kinds of socks – one made of plastic – boots, and an apron.”
“Removing these items required diligence and caution, as failure to do so would expose an individual to infection,” he explains.
Amazingly, amidst the gray, Ishmael still managed to find time to enjoy his stay in Freetown.
“I got to enjoy their dishes, most of which are sea foods. I very much enjoyed the lobsters and their special cassava whose leaves are also eaten as vegetables,” he says.
Returning to Botswana, Ishmael was held in quarantine for 21 days as part of the Ministry of Health’s Ebola control measures. Without a job and in quarantine for weeks, Ishmael today has bills to pay and a winter to look forward to.
But he does not regret taking up the brave journey from Cape Town to Freetown.
“I find fulfilment in having conquered the challenge, as that is the driving force behind all my ventures.”
Today, he is on the hunt for a job and has been frequenting the Ministry of Health in search of opportunities.
“None has come my way yet. I am intending to go back to South Africa as it’s easier to find opportunities there, especially those that lead to international exposure.”
While he gained valuable insight into a merciless killer, Ishmael will forever remember the helpless three-year-old Freetown girl who bled from every orifice as Ebola snatched away her hopes and dreams.