Q: What kind of work are you currently doing?

HC: I’m a nurse—a midwife. I was the Registrar of Nurses and Midwives during the Ebola period, and now I’m retired—but not tired [laughs]! I hope I can get something that will keep me going on.

Q: So, why did you become a nurse and a midwife?

HC: Well, certainly it was my passion since I was a little girl. My father was a diabetic, and I was the eldest daughter, so for any assistance he needed—he would call me. Most of the time when he was ill and in bed, I would just peep into the room to see whether he was asleep and okay. He knew my passion for caring for him, for sick people in general. “You can make a good nurse,” he said. “Would you like to be a nurse?” I said, “I will think about it.” I grew up with that in my mind, so, when I left school and they asked me about my career interests, I said nursing. I went straight into nursing. So, nursing has been me.

Q: So, how did you first learn about Ebola? What was your first memory of Ebola coming to Sierra Leone?

HC: My first memory of Ebola was sometime in May 2014. I think we had the first Ebola victim on the 24th. She had gone to visit a relative in neighboring Guinea and contracted the disease not knowing. About two months later, we had the case in Freetown. At the recognition of the first case, the Chief Nursing Officer called us to a meeting and said, “if the Ebola is not caught, we have to do something.” They organized training for senior nurses. We were trained how to put on PPEs [Personal Protective Equipment]. The training cascaded to the provincial headquarters, and then to other communities. By then, Ebola was not yet all over the place, but it was gradually moving. It’s very interesting how people contract Ebola.

Q: Can you tell me about it? How do you contract Ebola?

HC: Well, when you have Ebola you have to be careful [laughs]—it’s a non-touch technique—it’s a non-touch disease; you shouldn’t touch. You should make sure you’re well-protected if you have to touch. Hands are one of the most infected parts of our body, so we have to wash our hands frequently. The practice of washing hands was instituted in every hospital, in our homes, in our offices, even in the shops, all over our country.

Q: Can you talk about what the treatment is? What happened with the nurses?

HC: They gave them some immunoboost, Kephazon, and a lot of water. You have to drink a lot and eat—most of the time they don’t eat. Either their heart’s broken, or it’s just that there’s no appetite.

There was a time where a lot of nurses were infected from maternity units, one after the other. I went there and sent some packets of water and juices, biscuits—you know just to let them feel at least the seniors are not neglecting them. I went there, but I didn’t go into the unit.

Q: The level of fear, panic, or despair must have been huge in the community. Can you talk about what that was like, your being in a very high-level position?

HC: I live in a community where we have less-privileged people. But they’re the ones when you give them advice, some will adhere to the advice. What wasn’t easy was for them to stop visitation to the sick, because everybody was advised not to visit the sick, and in the African setting it’s not easy to tell somebody not to visit a sick relative. So, some of them went to visit—and they attended funerals, despite the recommendation not to attend, especially if the person died of Ebola. When you attend funerals, and there are many, you might infect yourself. And we stopped shaking hands. We have a culture of shaking of hands in Africa—we like to shake hands. So, we [laughs] stopped the culture [laughs]—everybody kept their hands behind their back.

Q: You have been in a position of nursing leadership. Are there other recommendations or things you would want to do? Was your voice heard as a nurse? What would you do if you could plan the new system to have everyone prepared?

HC: Everybody should have training for Ebola—every nurse, especially nurses—should have training for Ebola. And we can even extend Ebola [training] to the public. Because, when we had the Ebola period, people—even the cooks, the gardeners—they were all trained. So, it’s a matter of community—or let me say, national sensitization. Everybody should be well-equipped now—not with the logistics, but with the knowledge. So, as soon as it happens, if it should happen, we know we’ve got the skills. [They’d] probably forget, but it’s easy to orient. It’s easy to orient when we have the knowledge.

Q: Is there anything else you want to share looking back at this, or going forward?

HC: Anything more? We started a midwifery school in 2013 training male midwives, as well. We had one male midwife, the first male midwife trained in Sierra Leone. But he died during the Ebola scourge. We had another one, a Registered Nurse, who’s doing his B.S. in Nursing. He lost his mother, he lost his wife, he lost his wife’s sister, he lost his mother-in-law, and he lost two children. I was coordinating with him, I said, “I was calling, how are you feeling, are you—?” And then he started having fever. He did not want to go to the treatment center. But after he confided in me, I said, “You know, I’m going to call the treatment center.” Thank God he was saved.

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Hannah Coker was interviewed for Frontline Nurses by Jennifer Dohrn on August 12, 2019 in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

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