Duty to provide care to Ebola patients: the perspectives of Guinean lay people and healthcare providers

Abstract

Only a small minority of Guinean lay people and HCPs consider that HCPs' refusal to provide care to Ebola patients is always unacceptable. The most commonly endorsed position is that HCPs' duty to provide care to Ebola patients is linked to society's reciprocal duty to provide them with the working conditions needed to fulfil their professional duty.

What motivates individuals to volunteer in Ebola epidemic response? A structural approach in Guinea

“…These three studies that used a structural approach to examine motivations underlying volunteerism focused on contexts in which volunteering activities involved no life-threatening risk and were conducted exclusively in high-income countries in which volunteering conditions are relatively good. No study has yet examined the motivations of volunteers in Ebola epidemic responses, where the high Ebola fatality rate—which varied from 25 to 90% [21], the high level of its transmissibility [21], and the challenging working conditions of Ebola responders in Africa [22]—make the issue of volunteering much more challenging. The present study is the first to use a structural approach to examine volunteerism in an African context.…”

Acceptability of community quarantine in contexts of communicable disease epidemics: perspectives of literate lay people living in Conakry, Guinea

“…The mean rating was located near the middle of the response scale (M = 5.37), and the impact on ratings of the factors involved in the scenarios was not significant. Younger participants (25% of ages 18-20 and 31% of ages [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] and participants with a highschool education were significantly more likely to belong to this cluster than other participants. Four additional ANOVAs were conducted with Gender, Age, Religion and Educational level as between-subject factors.…”

Perspectives on non-clinical health care workers’ moral obligation to report for work during virulent epidemics: an exploration in Guinea

“…We previously explored the views of physicians and nurses providing medical treatment in Guinea on the duty to treat Ebola patients. 4 It has been argued that for physicians the duty to treat is grounded in the medical profession's privileges (e.g. medical practice prerogatives, societal investment in medical training, high wages) and its codes of ethics; therefore, physicians' duty to treat and work cannot be extended to non-clinical staff.…”

“…11,12 To our knowledge, there has so far been no published work examining NCHWs' perceptions and experiences in low resource settings such as sub-Saharan Africa; yet, this setting will be of particular importance given the general weakness of health systems and the poor working conditions for health workers. 4 Better understanding of this issue will be important as it can help inform policymakers in the planning for and responding to future epidemics.…”

“…We examined the views of NCHWs and lay people who were directly affected by the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa on NCHWs' moral obligation or duty to work during virulent communicable disease epidemics. Based on previous studies, 4,5 we expected to find at least three qualitatively different positions: (a) duty to work is always absolute, even in high-risk conditions; (b) duty to work is not absolute and NCHWs should not be coerced to work during epidemics, and (c) duty to work always depends on circumstantial factors such as working conditions and the risk of getting infected. We expected this third position to be the majority one.…”