Irish Ebola aid response ‘hampered by red tape’

Red tape has been blamed for hampering the efforts of Irish doctors to join the fight against Ebola as new figures show just a handful of the HSE's 100,000 staff have worked to control the disease in west Africa.

The HSE says it is reviewing its special leave policies after confirming that just three staff worked in Ebola-affected countries in recent weeks. Another member of staff left for west Africa last week and one more is to travel shortly.

Last week, a senior aid worker with Concern Worldwide said the HSE's leave scheme for staff wishing to participate in medical emergencies had been hit by delays in the processing of applications and the sanctioning of leave.

International programme director Anne O’Mahony said the agency was struggling to find the right number and quality of staff to work in the countries worst affected.

Concern was having difficulty in recruiting not just medical staff but also logisticians and engineers, she told a conference organised by the Irish Forum for Global Health.

Direct funding

To date,

Ireland

has provided direct funding of almost €4 million for Ebola treatment facilities in

Sierra Leone

and

Liberia

. Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs

Sean Sherlock

said last week the Government was “urgently looking” at what more it could do.

A lack of qualified staff to work in treatment units has been cited internationally as one of the main reasons why the outbreak has not been brought under control. Some US states have imposed quarantines on medical staff returning from the region, further discouraging doctors and nurses from volunteering to work there.

A HSE spokesman said any staff member wishing to work in an Ebola-affected country could do so “in consultation with their manager”.

Possible Army response

Minister for Defence

Simon Coveney

is considering requests from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Irish Aid for

Defence Forces

participation in the response to the crisis in Sierra Leone.

In Ireland, 14 people have been tested for Ebola, but all were negative. David Weakliam, chairman of the Irish Forum for Global Health, said the Irish authorities had adopted "an abundance of caution". Ireland was being "extremely vigilant to this disease in proportion to the threat" and "going that extra mile because of the anxiety around".

In the US, he said, “totally unnecessary” measures to prevent the spread of Ebola had been introduced because of “political pressure”.

Diarmuid O'Donovan, another forum member and public health doctor who worked fighting a smaller Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, said the approach taken by Ireland in relation to the disease was "closer to Boston than Berlin".

Ms O’Mahony, who has just returned from Sierra Leone and Liberia, said that when the outbreak started, Concern was faced with a choice; whether to stay in the countries or leave. It opted to stay but found itself going “far beyond the boundaries of what we normally do” in its work.