Q: In 2014, can you tell me where you were working, what your role was during the Ebola outbreak?

JH: In 2014, I was working with ELWA Hospital. I was playing a nursing role. Then later on, we were trained—after we heard about Ebola—we heard about Ebola in Lofa County [Liberia]. Then the management of the institution decided to train all of the nurses. ELWA was the first hospital to establish an ETU [Ebola treatment unit].

Q: And your role?

JH: I received a call over the weekend from my supervisor that I needed to make myself available to work, along with all of our doctors. This was not an easy thing. That Saturday morning, when I went to work, Dr. Deddi checked on the schedule and said: “Harries, you’re the lead nurse. You need to get set, so we can go in.” My heart started beating. Then she went to dress. Then I went to dress. When I got to dressing, I decided to pray. When I got through praying, we started to form a line to go in. We received all of the instruction, those things that we needed to do when we get in. So—

Q: —when you got there that day and were told, “You have to go in,” what you meant by going in is putting on the full PPE [personal protective equipment]—

JH: Yes.

Q: —and going into a red zone.

JH: Yes. Dr. Deddi decided to lead a team. Right after Deddi should have been the nurse. Right after the nurse should have been the aide. But right after Dr. Deddi, I decided to stay at the back and give chance to the aide. And aide was in front of me. When we got in, we began to talk. Then what really motivated me—when I saw Dr. Deddi giving aid to the first Ebola patient that we received in Monrovia. I got motivated.

Q: What more did you do there?

JH: I decided to apply to Belgian MSF. They took me. And I started playing both a nursing and a mental health role. When I enter the ETU, if I see somebody having frequent bowel movement, I report the case immediately. Those who are depressed, I give them psychosocial counseling.

Q: So with the mental health services, you were sitting and talking with patients? Are there any patients or experiences from providing that psychosocial support that stand out in your memory?

JH: Yes. I interacted with a patient. She died. She was six months pregnant. We got to talking on my first shift. She and I are from the same ethnic group. I told her if there is any problem she’s having, she should wait for me because we go in three times a day. When I got through talking with her, I came outside. The following day, I was on first shift. But when I went to meet her, she was already dead.

Q: I’m sorry. What helped you—your mental health—what helped you to keep going? What helped you personally to keep going, to be willing to live at the compound?

JH: God was the source of my strength. Because I can remember one morning I was going to the ETU and then I received a call from one of my students, that she had a relation infected with the Ebola virus.

Q: One of the nursing students.

JH: And one of my colleagues had just died. When I got to the ETU—I was not really feeling fine that whole day. I took the phone and called my pastor. He decided to pray for me and said, “It will be well with you.” When the time came for us to enter, I held my friend’s hand, with God to pray. Immediately when I entered the ETU, my whole goggles went dark. And once you feel uncomfortable, you have to come out, with the entire team. When my goggles got clear, I told them that I was not feeling comfortable. That whole day, I was thinking on what she told me. Actually, I was depending on God in the ETU.

Q: So that day, you came back out and you were thinking about it. What made you go back in?

JH: Yes! After my pastor said, “It will be well with you,” I gained that strength and I started going back to the ETU.

Q: So that really lifted you up—

JH: Yes.

Q: —and gave you courage.

JH: Yes.

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James N. Harries was interviewed for Frontline Nurses by Susan Michaels-Strasser on August 16, 2019 in Monrovia, Liberia.

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