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JO I arrived in Sierra Leone about 3 years ago, I originally went there to work on a maternal health project

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MOTHER She’s always had an adventurous life working as a comms officer but when I first heard that Joanna was going to Sierra Leone my first impressions was corrupt, terrible, frightening. And I though Jo you can’t possibly go there.

JO  There’s a very negative narrative around SL. It’s associated with civil war and Re blood diamonds. When I arrived the Reality of it was quite different

JO There is just so much life

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JO One of the things that really struck me was the incredible sense of style.

JO And started to have a fashion blog, and it just became quite addictive taking photos of people.

JO What’s this style?

Street woman  Short style, and then freak on your head

MOTHER It was fun, it was fun following it. Amazing how they would make these clothes, out of old bits of fabric, looked stunning.

JO The way people dress demonstrates their resilience and resourcefulness and a vibrancy. That is what I found really inspiring.

JO I was very focused on my blog, and various other little projects, and then everything completely changed in SL.

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ANTON (VIDEO + VO) West African health ministers are holding an emergency meeting to discuss ways to stop the deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus in history.  

JOANNA LIU, GLOABAL NATIONAL (VIDEO) It is like the war time, in terms of fear.

ANTON (VO) Ebola has now claimed more lives in SL then in any other country.

REUTERS GRAB The capital of SL resembles a ghost town  

JO The disease just moves around like this horrible menacing monster, and there were people just crying out for help.

CNN GRAB (VIDEO) My question quite simply is where is the international community?

ANTON (VO) The doctors sent to treat the sick, are themselves falling ill. And on the streets, there’s panic.  

JO I’ve never been scared that I was going to catch Ebola. It’s very infectious but in a way it’s not as contagious as we think.

BBC WOMAN (VO+ VIDEO) The greatest risk is from actually touching blood, vomit or diarrhoea but Ebola is quite hard to catch. It’s not carried invisibly in the air.

Mother I was quite worried at first, and you know my friends kept saying Jo should come home but ofcoarse there was no way she was going to leave it. I remember her saying, Mom I can’t go home, there’s so much to do.

JO So after Ebola started I actually didn’t have much time to be walking the streets, taking photos of.. great outfits.

Mother She’s been working for the kings college doctors at the Connaught Hospital. 

Mother: I was terribly worried about Joanna’s emotional state. How she was coping with it all. I think Jo had a few days off in four months.

JO My focus really switched to Ebola, as did everybody else’s. But I tried to kind sort of keep the blog going and focus on the people who were working on the Ebola response.

RANDOM HEALTH WORKER We didn’t even have time to stop and grieve or process it or think about what it meant for us because there were more patients there, and we had to move on. 

JO It’s been absolutely inspiring to be amongst a group of frontline workers.

AFRICAN HOSPITAL WORKER: SUBS: I have to work in the unit because I want to save my people.

JO I’m so lucky, I’ve met the most extraordinary human beings who are doing things that so many people wouldn’t do.

WILL POOLEY INTRO SHOTS

JOANNA  So one of the very inspiring characters that I’ve met has been Will Pooley who is a British nurse.

WILL POOLEY In terms of why I came to SL in the first place and that was because they needed nurses. As a nurse you always want to have the biggest impact you can and here, it’s easier to have that impact because there’s such a lack of trained staff.

JO I met him, right at the beginning of the outbreak. It was at a time when no one was taking any notice of what was going on.

WILL POOLEY I first met Jo after being at kenima for a couple of weeks. Conditions in the unit were really bad were had basic medicines but that was about it. Patient ratio we’d have up to 70 patients suspects and confirmed cases so, in terms of ratio, it wasn’t a great. Initially I didn’t have a huge fear but then, after a few days, when you start seeing colleagues die and you see the way patients are suffering when they’re sick then the fear creeps up.

JO I was really worried about him, he just seemed so vulnerable and he introduced me to his colleague Nancy who was equally vulnerable.

WILL POOLEY Nancy came in and took over the unit, when things were at their worst and most difficult.

JO So Nancy, you’ve lost a lot of your colleagues and your friends, what makes you keep coming back?

Nancy I have that faith that I am free from Ebola, I will not go far from Ebola ( ?). Finished, in this country. I have the faith, that’s all. 

WILL POOLEY She felt like it was on her shoulders, the weight of responsibility for all for all of the staff and all of the patients. I don’t think she considered it a choice.

JO I just remember thinking, this should not be happening, why are two people holding up this Ebola res- because you know this is the frontline. A few weeks later I got the news that he had been infected.   

WILL POOLEY It seems likely that I was infected whilst looking after a baby. After it’s mother died of Ebola, and was without anyone else to look after it. After a couple of days I had really high temperatures. And I was having uhh sort of, chills. 

BBC (VO) At Lungi airport, he was transported to an RAF plan on a trolley covered in plastic.

WILL POOLEY The medivac was, a bizarre experience. I felt a little bit embarrassed I suppose that, that all of this was for me. But, alongside that I just felt relieved.

BBC (VO) A police convey escorting the british man arrived at the Royal Free Hospital last night.

WILL POOLEY I knew the possibility that I was going to die, and when my temp was really spiking, I pictured the direction things was going. Because I’d seen paitents go through this, ofcoarse, before and then ending up with them, dead.  

BBC (VIDEO) The British man will be treated in this special isolation unit; a plastic tent allows doctors to interact with the patient without the risk of contamination. 

JO Very, very quickly he got treated by the best doctors, and made this miraculous recovery in 10 days I think

WILL POOLEY I had a lot of things in my favour, including, being evacuated and being offered experimental therapy.

DAY BREAK (VIDEO): WP who had been given the experimental drug, xenap, was discharged Wednesday. And said he considered himself fortunate adding that the standard of care he received was a world apart from what his friends were getting in West Africa.

JO during that time his colleague Nancy she became infected 

WILL POOLEY Knowing what her fate would be on the ward, in Kemina, where it’s seen so much umm horror and knowing that was what was going to happen to her was really unpleasant.

JO A week later she died, which is devastating.

WILL POOLEY The biggest tragedy about all of what happened in Kemina was Nancy’s-Nancy’s death.

WILL POOLEY Compared to the sophisticating care and the resources that went on my treatment, I don’t think anyone has a way to justify that some people should umm suffer and die unnecessarily just because of where they were born and other people get access to the best.

JO When nurses die, they get like a photocopied portrait and then someone will type up a little tribute and it gets stuck on the wall with gaffe tape. And that’s what happens when people die in SL of Ebola.

JO You’re operating at this level it’s been hard to find a moment to sort of reflect. I guess you can delay your grief and your reaction and I guess I’ve waited until I stepped away from SL.

MOTHER: When Joanna said she was going to go back for six more months my initial reaction was ohh do you really have to go back, do you really need to go back? There’s always umm the doubt of things happening  over there.

JO I was always kinda committed to go back. I realised I really want to be around when Ebola finishes. I hope there’s going to be that moment when people can feel like they’ve beaten it.

JO Coming back has been really interesting, it’s quiet different here now. It feels like there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Back at Connaught hospital this is where I was working at the heart of the outbreak 

JO Case numbers are coming right down, I think in the last week there’s been 70 cases, two months ago there were between three and five hundred cases a week. 

JO It’s really good to see Will, he’s back here, still working on the Ebola outbreak.

WILL POOLEY I knew I was going to come back, there was no question about that. I never wanted to leave SL, it was only because I got sick.

JO What’s it like here, compared to what it was at the end of last year when things were really really terrible and cases were still going up.

WILL POOLEY Yeah, it’s a lot quieter, we’ve got a handful of patients inside, likely they’ll test negative haven’t had a positive case for a couple of days.

JO I think a lot of people say we’re on this bumpy road to the end

WILL POOLEY Yeah but when it is announced its going to be a good time to be here.

JO what are we going to do?

WILL POOLEY Have a big party!

JO Its going to be amazing, isn’t it

WILL POOLEY There’s going to be a lot of body contact probably (Laughs)

(shots of dude in contamination a suit dancing)

JO He’s a good dancer

(will and jo laugh)

WILL POOLEY I saw the very best of what people can do, with people like Nancy just the humanity and the amazing courage I saw how wonderful people can be.

JO I guess it’s been a huge moment in my life one that I’m going to just remember as the incredibly strong people. I don’t think their spirit was ever broken. That something that will always stay with you and you can draw inspiration from.

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