In Layers of Gear, Offering Healing Hand to Ebola Patients in Liberia

October 17, 2014

(New York Times) – In his first two weeks in Liberia at a new clinic run by the charity International Medical Corps, Dr. Hatch has learned the ways of the Ebola ward. Much of West Africa is following a no-hands rule to avoid contagion from the deadly virus, but doctors and nurses here, protected by layers of plastic and rubber armor, routinely touch the sick. Without a drug that can cure the disease, they offer patients fluids and medications to treat symptoms, but also the simplest of comforts, like feeding them or cleaning them up.