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| Ernest Garnark Smith, Jr |
It’s often said that the mindset of an individual,
people and, even a nation significantly determines the rate and pace at which
they tend to perform given tasks and even prevail against any foes. Without
doubt, it’s glaring that Mama Liberia is fiercely at war against a determined
foe called EBOLA. And, if the truth is being told and the stats are being analyzed
and concerned raised at all level, we are regrettably on the verge of nearest
to losing the uphill battle against our foe Ebola because some cardinal components
are being labeled, seen and treated as non-essentials. Paramount amongst the
‘non-essentials’ is the lack of the provision of quality psycho-social supports
to three distinct and crucial parties in the very fight: the victims (confirmed Ebola victims and suspected Ebola victims ) ; the families of confirmed
victims, suspected victims and, health workers who died while providing cares
for victims; and health workers and
care-givers.
In every epidemic and disaster management situations
I have even read of, witnessed and provided services, I have always vividly
seen quality psycho-social supports being given priority, credence, well-funded
and allowed to be provided without unnecessary hindrances. Sadly, reverse is
the case in our national fight against Ebola despite the allocation of funding
from tax payers money for the provision of the said vital service.
Every Ebola victim is a human who despite being at a
critical crossroad still deserves to be treated with dignity and accorded all
his/her inalienable rights and, amongst those rights is the provision of
holistic medical service of which quality psycho-social supports and mental
health are fundamental component. It is even more important that Ebola victims
have access to professional counseling because they are not just victims of physical illness but victims of gross discrimination and abject neglect in the
truest sense of the word. They in most cases are preys to minor depression
which speedily degenerate into acute depression which science have proven is a
staunch barrier to physical healing which originates from the mind.
From my experience of working with clients in
refugee camps, prisons, ghettoes, hospital and, even victims in the very
E.L.W.A. Ebola Treatment Unit, records have shown that patients and clients who
were given quality psycho-social supports tend develop positive mindset which
catapulted their healing. Dr. Philip Z. Ireland of the J.F.K.Medical Center (an Ebola survivor treated at the E.L.W.A Center) who I visited and spent a little
over two hours chatting with this morning put it this way; “Smith, when I saw
you at the center talking to me through the window I was not surprised and was
happy, but when I saw you in PPEs in my isolation room in the center my spirit
was elated”.
Staffers at the center
showed me profound gratitude via their sincere thanks and appreciation every
time I humbly walked out of the unit after being disinfected. Some said, my
counseling makes their works with their patients easier. The specialization of
labor applies everywhere if we want to score the needed victory. Show me a high
spirited patient of any sort of illness and I will with ease show you a client/patient
who stands a greater chance of survival. The records are there and backed by
daily manifestations that a positive mind frame significantly influences
prognosis of patients. Every Ebola victim
or suspected victim goes through an unprecedented mental torture which is
exacerbated by the rational yet degrading process of being quarantined and
subjected to rigorous treatment rudiments.
In most cases, at least 75% of people in such
conditions if not given adequate supports succumb to their adversaries which
are not just the actual disease but shame, hopelessness, depression, anger and,
the loss of self –esteem. All of aforementioned adversaries can be defeated and
dignity, hope, health and national pride be restored by diligently and
assiduously providing essential psycho-social counseling for a victim who is
equally Liberia as those whose inept denies them their rights to holistic medical treatment.
In my Sociology 215 Class at the A.M.E.Zion
University, I teach my students that one of the fundamental functions of the
family is the provision of protection and supports for its members. Sadly, contrary
is that focal norm and function in an Ebola related situation. Woe betides
anyone who thinks that that mother, father, brother, sister, and, even a friend
who helplessly with undeserved guilt stands in awe and shock as his/her love one gradually die mentally and then physically in one of the most humiliating
fashions our nation has ever witnessed returns home a normal being. They are
never the same again and need ardent and urgent psycho-social supports.
When our love ones are even suspected of Ebola we are
mentally unstable because we for some genuine yet unbearable reasons stand and
look by without giving the expected helping hands. This gives us guilt which in
the first place is unwarranted but if not treated will lead to anger, fear,
depression and then the biggest of all, stigma. The families of suspected,
confirmed, and dead victims are mentally torn apart by discrimination, profound
grief, anger and all sort of mental odds. Our national fight against Ebola must
also practically not theoretically include the provision of the requisite means
for treating and alleviating traumas that engulf families of victims.
Anything short of the said, is a gross and in some
case calculated violation of their God-given rights as citizens of Liberia as
inscribed in those sacred articles of our constitution. And, for this noble
cause I’ve sworn to write, speak and act as the need is urgent and enormous.
Are many bereaved families are on record for receiving substantial grief and
transitional counseling as the results of the Ebola related death of their love ones? If at all any of such is being given, the numbers are shamefully dismal
though our Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has on its payroll many mental
health clinicians, social workers and psycho-social counselors. This too is
alarming and raises eyebrow when we have our taxes being used to pay people
whose impacts and expertise are supposed to be felt nationwide.
To my colleagues who are psycho-social counselors,
mental health clinicians and social workers, there may be no appropriate time
other than now to score your career and passion-to-serve indelible pluses and
marks. Liberia needs you most and, let me remind you guys that you run the
grievous risk of going down in our history as professionals who woefully failed
to deliver when the nation and humanity needed you most. Think about this life
ordeal of reproach upon you and your generation and act responsibly and
ethically.
‘Front liners’, ‘national heroes’, ‘true patriots’
and ‘hard-working-health-workers’ and all sorts of flimsy and beauteous names
we’re called in every corners but in all manner of sincerity, are we given the
requisite gears to battle the foe? Are we justly paid what we worth
proportional to the risks we take to serve in such difficult times? Oh my
goodness, are our backs being watched while we go in harm ways even though we
are ill equipped? What about the vital psycho-social supports we need as we
watch hopelessly while our colleagues died and we cannot help? At this point, I
am constrained to be blunt and not sugar-coat my words because this aspect hits
me hardest daily.
When Dr. Samuel S. Brisbane, Sr., Dr. Abraham
Borbor, Dr. Melvin Korkor, Physician Assistant Stephen Vincent, nurses, lab
technicians and other health workers nationwide were ill and painfully away
from their distressed families were their families given supports? Oh yes, when
enough of those men and women who conscientiously gave their lives and services
to this great nation died in and under ghastly fashion, were their families
given sufficient psycho-social supports? A resounding no is the very unfortunate
answer! Even more frustrating, while health workers who might have been the
bread winners, ‘fortress of hope’ and source of joy and inspiration for their
families walked the dreadful and faint-hope path of Ebola to which they
eventually succumbed, were their families given supports?
Come to think about it, those colleagues with whom
we worked and saw died were people, some of whom we have worked with for ages.
We built irreplaceable bonds with many of them and, their death no doubt swept
us off balance. Don’t those responsible at the Ministry of Health and Social
Welfare and at the level of the Ebola National Task Force think we need quality
and comprehensive psycho-social supports? Indeed we need lest we get overwhelmed
by our losses and do provide poor health related services. That too is very
detrimental to us and those patients and clients we care and provide services
for.
Still put, as we daily provide quality services to
our patients and client under stringent conditions, we experience vicarious
trauma which requires the expertise of professional counselors to treat.
Vicarious trauma is a severe form trauma experienced by care givers and health workers
as the result of being expose to exceedingly horrible scenes and situations in
the course of discharging their noble duties. Assessing, treating, counseling
and several ways working with patients and clients in this perilous time is an
ideal settling and breeding ground for vicarious trauma.
For goodness
sake, do we expect to win this national fight against Ebola when in fact a
patriotic PA, nurse, hygienist and a Dr. Jerry Brown who brave the storm to go
into the Ebola Treatment Unit is burdened and overloaded with their job plus
the works of those psycho-social counselors/mental health clinicians/social
workers who are being paid but have never entered the unit in PPEs to provide
quality psycho-social supports? Comically yet outrageously enough psycho-social supports is being provided the patients and their relative in an unique style
that is only seen, overlooked thereby endorsed by our ‘authorities’. And, this
is how quality psycho-social services are provided our people at the ELWA
Isolation Center…..
In the face of extreme frustration and agony, our
traumatized victims’ families daily are being boisterously insulted verbally
and emotionally by a ‘doctor’ who in the truest sense is the E.T.U’s
infuriating disgusting ‘public relations officer’ (PRO). When this erratic
‘Dr.’ who is being paid our tax payers’ money to be in the E.T.U treating
patients crying for attention instead chooses to insult and grossly disrespect
patients relatives, my bosses and other professionals like me who have cardinal
part to play in our fight against Ebola, he’s providing ‘quality’ psycho-social services. Only in Liberia can this unprecedented and inhumane madness happen
and go unchecked.
Our ill remuneration methodology is a direct
contradiction to all the ‘loud’ and vain promises of incentive and motivational
packages of health workers. Even my seven-year-old twin boys have been more
motivational as theirs was demonstrated in words and deeds: those little ones
once said to me on the phone, “daddy, we are praying for you oh and we have
candies for you yeh”. Again, those at
the ‘top’ need to take heed; pay my little boys consultancy fees and follow
their example. Where are the incentive and motivational packages promised
health workers? In the face of a national economy strangulation which have
given birth to increment the in mental and physical hardships which potentially
lowered our efficiency, isn’t it prudent to give us our just pay and
incentives?
No doubt it’s always a rewarding venture to do so.
By doing so, Mama Liberia increases her chance of having an already demoralized,
fearful and ill equipped group of health workers stimulated to muster up the
courage to serve. When Dr. Kent Brantly and his colleague Nancy chose to donned
their PPEs, entered and served at the E.L.W.A. Ebola Treatment Center, they
fearlessly did so for many reasons but paramount amongst those reasons was the
glaring and established fact that they were (all Americans are) sure and
convicted that though they were going through harm way, yet in the worst case
scenario their government Uncle Sam would infinitely watch their backs.
You are all witnesses to the reality that when the
worst situation occurred Uncle Sam never defaulted on her promises that are
inscribed in their sacred constitution. They were given quality treatments in
all ramifications and, eventually airlifted and treated in the best facilities.
Dare not raise the lazy argument that we lack the capacity to follow suit ;
because when same happened before our eyes, our heroes and heroines were not
given the best of treatments proportional to our capacity. Again, only in
Liberia have I seen this happened and go unchecked all of my professional life.
Am I one of those who have loss hope and faith in
Mama Liberia? Emphatically, the known answer is no! Who dare thinks that I am
that pessimist who thinks our national government isn’t scoring marks in our
national fight? Instead, I am one of the many faithful and hopelessly hopeful
youthful Liberian professions who still believe that despite the odds and
unfavorable figures and data, Liberia can still score a memorable win in this
deadly and fierce fight against the Ebola virus disease.
How can we still score
a win? The below are my candid recommendations from my career perspective:
· Redefine the role of psycho-social supports in our national strategy and fight against Ebola and get the requisite and competent mental health clinicians, social workers and counselors trained
and on board speedily.
·
In an earnest effort to monitor and
evaluate the works of the trained care givers, constitute, empower and well
fund a robust psycho-social supports technical team made of people with proven
experiences and reliable track records.
·
Assigned at least four social workers or psycho-social counselors to every E.T.U., the said number can be increased or decreased relative to the size of the unit. And, let it also be spelt out that
they are professional people whose views should respected and given access to
the unit. The will eradicate the uncalled hurdles and frustrations I faced at
the E.L.W.A. Ebola Treatment Unit in the discharge of my much needed functions.
·
Let victims in the units, survivors of
the disease and their families at some point in time as soon as possible have
duly access to psycho-social supports.
·
Hire and train data entry clerks and
four data analysts to track and analyze data as it relates to survivors,
patients’ death, their families’ locations and contacts, and the frequency of
counseling sessions provided them. The hired data entry clerks and analysts
will be deployed regionally, monitored and evaluated weekly.
·
Without unnecessary bureaucracy, pay
health workers our handsome overdue salary which they in fact deserve and add
some incentive to motivate us.
·
Enforce the rewarding practice of
debriefing, self-care and vicarious trauma counseling session for all staffers
at the unit as will be recommended by the psycho-social supports technical team
and implemented by the psycho-social counselors assigned at the unit.
Achieving the above mentioned isn’t done by simply
spinning a magic wane; there are obviously hurdles and constrains of all sorts
yet I am of the staunch convictions that if the right people are first put in
the right places, empowered, monitored and listened to, we as a nation can
overall prevail against Ebola and other foes as we have with sweat, blood and
diligence overcome in the past.. God bless Mama Liberia, God bless our leaders
and God bless those bereaved and aggrieved families of victims, survivors and all
health workers
About the author: Ernest Garnark Smith, Jr. is a psycho-social counselor, social
worker, freelance poet, blogger, university lecturer, advocate and motivational
speaker who is exceptionally passionate
about his calling/job/career. He can be easily reached at: +231886824826/775709161 and email:
track2311@yahoo.com/liberiancounselor@counsellor.com