Dr. J. Soka Moses, left, in the Ebola treatment unit he runs at JFK hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. Dr. Moses is the Ebola unit's only doctor.
Patrick McGroarty for The Wall Street Journal
See, Harvard University can pay attention to the real world. Does Harvard University have the authority to dictate who can travel where? State commissioner of Health can isolate residents without any legal process. Does Harvard share that state constitutional authority? Great to learn that Harvard University Health Services is "training staff so that they can properly respond and recognize the disease." Will the Medical School and School of Public Health train its students and faculty? Currently some doctors at U.S. hospitals refuse to examine suspected ebola infected patients. They send nurses to make the examinations. Then there are the American trained Liberian doctors, including the President of Liberia's son who stays in the United States and refuses to travel to Liberia. Does than mean that American doctors should do what they refuse to do? See e.g., Wall Street Journal, "Many Liberian Doctors—Including President’s Son—Are Staying Away," By Patrick McGroarty, Oct. 20, 2014
[From article]
Harvard affiliates wishing to travel on University business to the countries most affected by Ebola must now obtain the approval of University Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 and their respective School dean, according to a new set of guidelines the University disseminated on Friday.
Unrelated to that approval process, the new policy also mandates that any Harvard affiliate returning from Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia must complete a medical screening with Harvard University Health Services before arriving on campus. Travelers could also be asked to stay away from campus for 21 days, the length of the virus’s incubation period.
The guidelines, outlined in an email from Garber and UHS Director Paul J. Barreira, expand on those detailed in August that asked for Harvard students, faculty, and staff to avoid nonessential travel to the three countries.
In an interview Friday, University President Drew G. Faust added that UHS is also undertaking a set of planning exercises to prepare for a case of Ebola at the University, training staff so that they can properly respond and recognize the disease.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/20/harvard-tightens-travel-restrictions/
Harvard Tightens Travel Restrictions as Ebola Outbreak Worsens
Affiliates Wishing To Travel to West Africa Must Now Obtain Provost’s Approval
By Amna H. Hashmi
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
October 20, 2014
UPDATED: October 20, 2014, at 2:45 a.m.
* * *
[From article]
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Sunday said “the whole world has a stake” in preventing an unfolding catastrophe in Liberia, calling on nations to provide more medical experts and supplies to confront the exploding Ebola epidemic. But illustrating the difficulties of heeding that call, her own son, a physician, has stayed in the U.S., saying he can do more for his country there than at home.
“It is the duty of
all of us as global citizens to send a message that we will not leave
millions of West Africans to fend for themselves,” Mrs. Sirleaf said. In
line with that message, the president in late August fired state
officials who refused to come home from abroad to help Liberia battle
Ebola.
At that time, however, her son,
Dr. James Adama Sirleaf,
was returning to his family in Georgia, after deciding to pull
his medical training group out of his homeland because of mounting risks
to doctors there.
[. . .]
Officials and physicians here say far more
Liberian doctors are in the U.S. and other countries than in the country
of their birth, and that their absence is complicating efforts to curb
what has become a global health crisis.
Even
before Ebola, there were only about 170 Liberian doctors in the
country, and colleagues say many of them weren't actively practicing. At
least four of them have since died of the virus. That shortage has
prompted repeated pleas from the Liberian government for more foreign
doctors to join the fight.
Foreign
governments, including the U.S., have begun to respond, in part to
prevent a tide of new Ebola infections from entering their own
countries. The U.S. has sent 400 of the up to 4,000 military personnel
it will deploy to build 17 Ebola treatment units, the first of which is
scheduled to open this month. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has 40 staff members on the ground. Doctors Without Borders, a
nonprofit at the forefront of the response, has more than 100 foreign
staff members working in Liberia.
[. . .]
In its latest tally, the World Health Organization said Friday that
Ebola has killed almost 2,500 people in Liberia—more than half the
global death toll so far. The WHO has warned that Ebola could be
infecting 10,000 people a week by December if it spreads into larger
West African nations, such as Ivory Coast.
[. . .]
Until the 1970s, Liberia was a middle-income country with 3,000 medical
doctors. Aspiring physicians from across West Africa trained at JFK, the
country’s top hospital. But a coup in 1980 set off two decades of civil
war that tore Liberia and its health infrastructure apart.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/many-liberian-doctorsincluding-presidents-sonare-staying-away-1413758509
Many Liberian Doctors—Including President’s Son—Are Staying Away
As President of Ebola-Ravaged Country Pleads for Foreign Helpers, Her Physician Son Sends Aid from U.S.
By Patrick McGroarty
Updated Oct. 20, 2014 2:18 p.m. ET
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