Ebola is the terror topic of the week. But CNN reported on a young woman with courage and brains who has taken charge where so many have failed. I would love to give towards this woman's college education!
CNN) --
It can be exhausting nursing a child through a nasty bout with the flu, so
imagine how 22-year-old Fatu Kekula felt nursing her entire family through
Ebola.
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
stayed healthy, which is noteworthy considering that more than 300 health care
workers have become infected with Ebola, and she didn't even have personal
protection equipment -- those white space suits and goggles used in Ebola
treatment units.
Instead
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."
She
emphasized, of course, that it would be better for patients to be in real
hospitals with doctors and nurses in protective gear -- it's just that those
things aren't available to many West Africans.
No
one knows that better than Fatu.
Her
Ebola nightmare started Juy 27, when her father, Moses, had a spike in blood
pressure. She took him to a hospital in their home city of Kakata.
A
bed was free because a patient had just passed away. What no one realized at
the time was that the patient had died of Ebola.
One
woman walked in, and the Ebola nightmare began
Moses,
52, developed a fever, vomiting and diarrhea. Then the hospital closed down
because nurses started dying of Ebola.
Fatu
took her father to Monrovia, the capital city, about a 90-minute drive via
difficult roads. Three hospitals turned him away because they were full.
She
took him back to another hospital in Kakata. They said he had typhoid fever and
did little for him, so Fatu took him home, where he infected three other family
members: Fatu's mother, Victoria, 57; Fatu's sister, Vivian, 28, and their
14-year-old cousin who was living with them, Alfred Winnie.
While
operating her one-woman Ebola hospital for two weeks, Fatu consulted with their
family doctor, who would talk to her on the phone, but wouldn't come to the
house. She gave them medicines she obtained from the local clinic and fluids
through intravenous lines that she started.
At
times, her patients' blood pressure plummeted so low she feared they would die.
"I
cried many times," she said. "I said 'God, you want to tell me I'm
going to lose my entire family?' "
But
her father, mother, and sister rallied and were well on their way to recovery
when space became available at JFK Medical Center on August 17. Alfred never
recovered, though, and passed away at the hospital the next day.
"I'm
very, very proud," her father said. "She saved my life through the
almighty God."
Now
he's working to find a scholarship for Fatu so she can finish her final year of
nursing school. He has no doubt his daughter will go on to save many more
people during her life.
"I'm
sure she'll be a great giant of Liberia," he said.