7 April 2020

Laura Hucks, Director of King’s Global Health Partnerships at King’s Health Partners, explains how her team are supporting efforts.

Part of the team

I worked in Sierra Leone during the Ebola response in 2014 and there was universal respect for the role that NHS volunteers played throughout the crisis. King’s Global Health Partnerships brought volunteers from across London hospitals to co-lead the response alongside doctors and nurses in Connaught Hospital [pictured right], the main tertiary referral hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It was an astonishing act of solidarity between health professionals. Those volunteers treated an impressive 10% of the 4,000 cases and worked with humour, compassion and resilience.

The need for action in Sierra Leone

In late March 2020, Sierra Leone counted its first positive COVID-19 case. Our team has known this was coming. We have been worried about the rise in cases in neighbouring countries. The concern is that more fragile health systems will not cope with a higher number of cases, especially if they were to reach a similar level as those currently in the UK.

Sierra Leone has a ratio of three doctors and 50 nurses per 100,000 people. By comparison, China had 180 doctors and 230 nurses per 100,000. There is also a low number of isolation beds, intensive care unit beds and oxygen concentrators.

What the team is doing to prepare

Our team in Freetown is a mix of Sierra Leoneans, international staff and volunteers from the NHS. They are working with the government of Sierra Leone and the leadership of Connaught Hospital to prepare as best they can. They have a strong starting point – deep and trusting relationships with our Sierra Leonean partners; an understanding of the health system and its vulnerabilities; and for some, the lived experience of the Ebola response in 2014.  

Over the past few weeks they have developed facility preparedness checklists, scrubbed and organised the Infectious Disease Unit, trained nursing staff, assessed the state of the oxygen factory, advised the Ministry of Health and the international donor and NGO community, prepared standard operating procedures and guidelines for health professionals.

Funding from King’s College London has allowed them to move quickly and we are hugely grateful for this! It’s a great source of pride that this spirit of internationalism is alive and well despite the crisis in our own country.

Similar work is beginning in the Democratic Congo and Somaliland where we also have long-term partnerships with government and frontline health facilities. 

Opportunities to support the team

If you would like to support King’s Global Health Partnership’s work remotely, please get in touch with us. As travel is not possible at this time, we are looking for individuals to join an advisory group to support our evolving plans.

If you would like to learn more, email kghpATKcl.ac.uk 

Learn more about King’s Global Health Partnerships. 

Donate to our COVID-19 work in Sierra Leone, Somaliland and the Democratic Republic of Congo.