Nurses Treating Ebola Patients on Strike in Sierra Leone

Due to non-payment of risk allowance by the government for the month of November for treating Ebola patients, about 30 nurses were on strike.

Due to non-payment of risk allowance by the government for the month of November for treating Ebola patients, about 30 nurses were on strike at Mabenteh Hospital, a public hospital in the town of Makeni in northern Sierra Leone.

A spokesman for the nurses, Henry Conteh said, "We are not going to attend to any patients who are already admitted and will not accept any new cases until we are paid. The matter is serious and needs to be settled urgently."

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No information was available on how much money the health workers were owed or how many patients had been turned away.

The manager of the Mabenteh Hospital board, Ibrahim Bangura, said, “We are working to resolve the issue with the authorities so that patients' lives will not be at risk."

According to the WHO figures, Sierra Leone recently overtook Liberia as the country with the highest number of infections, recording 9,004 cases and 2,582 deaths.

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