With around 180 patients, Monday is usually the most hectic day at our Surgical and Paediatric Centre in Goderich. As you can see, our staff are used to "big numbers", but yesterday was an even busier Monday than usual: during the weekend, the Sierra Leone government decreed three days of curfew (from Friday to Sunday) to stem the Ebola epidemic. «People couldn't move around, so they had trouble getting to the hospital» explains Sara, hospital coordinator. «That's why yesterday morning, once the curfew had ended, there were already so many waiting for us outside the Centre right from the early hours. We had 110 patients in the paediatric first aid section, 55 emergency cases needing surgery, and more than 90 people in the clinic - a total of 255 people in less than 24 hours.» Numbers that bear witness to the importance of this hospital for the people of this country. A country that has not only been hit by Ebola, but also has to go on facing all the health and medical problems that abounded before and that will continue to be felt once the virus has been beaten back.

And while Sara and her colleagues work endlessly at the Goderich Centre (the only hospital in or around the capital that hasn't closed for a single day since the Ebola epidemic began), our staff of the 100-bed Ebola Treatment Unit continue their work to halt the virus and treat the people suffering from it.

(March 31, 2015)