UMass Medical docs were already working in Liberia when the Ebola epidemic began raging. So, it’s no surprise that Dr. Steven Hatch’s name keeps coming up in New York Times stories about Ebola care. (See links below) Now, a $7.9 million grant will bolster the Umie effort by funding both care for patients and training for Liberian docs. In this case, the UMass warrior mascot seems appropriate: Go Minutemen!
From the UMass press office:
He and others often rely on their instincts and experience. When Ms. Sayon’s second blood test for Ebola came back, the results were negative, but the doctors were wary of releasing her. She was bent over in a chair, shaking. Her eyes and cheeks were sunken. Keeping her in the ward for suspected cases risked infecting her with the virus, but the physicians reasoned she already had significant exposure from her family, and virus detection can sometimes lag symptoms by up to three days. (They also suspected there might have been a mix-up because of labeling problems that day with blood samples that the new center quickly worked to fix.)
gear at an Ebola treatment center, he was confronted with the weight of his
decision to volunteer here. A patient, sweating and heavily soiled, had
collapsed in a corridor. “Literally every surface of his body was covered in
billions of particles of Ebola,” he recalled.
The physician introducing him to the routine, Dr. Pranav Shetty, said
they needed to get the man back to bed, so they picked him up. Dr. Shetty
focused on calming the patient, who would not live through the night. He
diluted a Valium tablet in water, and cut some intravenous tubing into a
crude straw for him to sip.
“It was a beautiful moment because I was like, he’s a doctor, he was
taking care of his patients,” said Dr. Hatch, an American volunteer. “That’s
what we do here.”
In his first two weeks in Liberia at a new clinic run by the charity
International Medical Corps, Dr. Hatch has learned the ways of the Ebola
