By Blathnaid Healy From Mashable

The nurse being treated for Ebola in a London hospital described her experiences working in Sierra Leone in a diary published only days earlier in a Scottish newspaper.

In the piece, published by The Scotsman on Dec. 28, Pauline Cafferkey stated that before going to work in Sierra Leone’s infectious “Red Zone,” where there is a high rate of Ebola, she and her colleagues would wish each other good luck.

A nurse for 16 years, Cafferkey wrote she had been inspired to join the profession after seeing images from the famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s. As an associate public health nurse at Blantyre Health Centre in South Lanarkshire, she was part of a group of 50 National Health Service (NHS) health care workers who returned to the UK over the weekend after volunteering in Sierra Leone.

She had been working in Lakka, outside the capital of Freetown, with Save the Children since Nov. 23.

In November, Cafferkey told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland that she had applied to go to Sierra Leone; she couldn’t think of a reason not to go. However, she said she was not complacent about the risks and had undergone nine days of training with the Ministry of Defence before being dispatched.

In the diary published in The Scotsman, Cafferkey described the moments after she stepped off the plane in Sierra Leone: the smell of chlorine, a thermometer pointed at her head. Cafferkey described the moments after she stepped off the plane in Sierra Leone: the smell of chlorine, a thermometer pointed at her head.

“We are very well catered for and are housed in a wee shack on the beach. It has electricity for a few hours during the night and although mostly cold has running water,” she wrote. “This is basic stuff but I’m not here for a holiday. Being coastal we are very fortunate to get to walk along a beautiful beach every day to get to the hotel that serves our food.”

While the location may be quite beautiful, Cafferkey wrote, she described a bleak picture for the patients she was treating:

Had an awful shift this week. I was with a lady who was dying. I could tell she didn’t have long, so I was trying to make her comfortable. There was a young boy standing at the window looking in and I waved to him. A few minutes later she had passed away and I heard the boy crying outside the ward. When I went to him, he asked if she had died. I said yes. He said she was his mother. He had already lost his father to Ebola, and now he had no parents.

She described the protective measures she and her colleagues took while administering care to patients, worrying that health workers looked like aliens in their suits.

“The PPE [personal protective equipment] alien-type suit that I have to wear when going into the positive Red Zone is horrendous. It takes about 20 minutes to dress and 15 minutes to take the suit off at the other end,” Cafferkey wrote.

“They would certainly be beneficial on a cold winter’s night in Scotland but working in them in 30 degree heat is uncomfortable to say the least. On the up side, I feel very well protected.”

Cafferkey arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in North London on Tuesday after she was flown in a military plane from Glasgow. She had returned to Scotland from Sierra Leone via Casablanca and London Heathrow, arriving at around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday. A telephone helpline has been set up for anyone travelling on those flights at 08000 858531.

In her final diary entry from her fourth week in Sierra Leone, Cafferkey wrote about Christmas and New Year’s gatherings being cancelled there. She also wrote about the knock-on impact the virus had on the country’s economy and school system.

She added that the spirits of the aid workers are buoyed by the number of Ebola patients who have recovered and are being discharged. the spirits of the aid workers are buoyed by the number of Ebola patients who have recovered and are being discharged.

“When they are able to clear Ebola and are strong enough for discharge, the patients will go to the ‘happy shower’ to have their last chlorine wash, and leave all their personal belongings for incineration and collect new clothes,” she wrote.

“It helps us remember the good work we are doing and the reason we are all here.”

IMAGE: An undated Cafferkey family handout photo of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey, from Blantyre, who has been unofficially named as the healthcare worker who is being treated in London’s Royal Free Hospital 30 December 2014 for Ebola.

IMAGE: HANDOUT/EPA

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