Salome Karwah
Salomé Karwah (c. 1988 – 21 February 2017) was a Liberian
Biography
Karwah's father was a doctor.[3] She met her future husband, James Harris, at a mutual friend's in 2013 after both had recently ended previous relationships.[3] They began dating shortly afterwards.[3]
Ebola work
One year after Karwah and Harris began dating, the
By September 2014, both the Karwah sisters had recovered, determined free of the disease, and discharged from the hospital.[3] Salome Karwah was released from the ebola unit on 28 August 2014.[6] Karwah's boyfriend, James Harris, also recovered and was released from the medical unit a few days later.[3] The staff at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) had noticed that Karwah and Harris had both shown an ability to care for other ebola victims, regardless of the risk to their own health, while they had been patients.[3] Shortly after their discharge from the hospital, MSF hired them to serve as mental health counselors in their ebola units.[3][5] Salome Karwah returned to the unit, this time as a counselor and nurse, one month after her release.[6] As survivors, she and Harris had developed a natural immunity to that particular strain of ebola.[6]
Karwah, who was interviewed on her work by
Harris and Karwah became engaged. They were married to January 2016 while Karwah was pregnant with their third child, who was born a few months later.[3] In the summer of 2016, Karwah became pregnant with their fourth child, which they agreed would be their last.[3] The couple, who were religious but already had three small children, thought of having an abortion, but chose to keep the baby.[3]
Death from complications of childbirth
Salome Karwah went through a difficult pregnancy. In February 2017, Karwah underwent a
Her husband rushed her back to ELWA hospital on the night of 19 February 2017.[3] However, the doctor who specialized in treating ebola survivors was not on duty. Another doctor refused to treat Karwah, who remained in the car for three hours while suffering from convulsions and seizures.[3][5] Harris eventually went to the emergency room himself and brought out a wheelchair to bring his wife into the hospital.[3] According to Harris, the doctor and nurses on duty still refused to see or touch Karwah, telling him that he would have to take her to another hospital. Harris gave his account to NPR, saying ""[The doctor] was checking Facebook...I had to rush into the emergency room myself to get a wheelchair, but I was struggling to take her from the car to put her in it. Other nurses came to help me, but the doctor told me that she would not touch her, and that if [Salome] stayed [at the hospital] she would die."[3]
He managed to contact an
Harris and Karwah's sister, Josephine, accused the ELWA staff of malpractice due to her status as a former ebola patient.[3][8] They accuse the medical staff of providing inadequate care because they were afraid to touch her.[3][8][4] Josephine Manly, Karwah's sister who also survived ebola, reiterated Harris's claims of poor treatment by hospital staff, saying "They said she was an Ebola survivor. They didn't want contact with her fluids. They all gave her distance. No one would give her an injection."[4] Manly believes that Karwah would have survived the child birth complications if she had received proper, timely emergency medical treatment.[4]
The mistaken belief that ebola survivors can still transmit the disease remains widespread across the country, including among medical staff, which may have contributed to Karwah's death.[1] According to the Associated Press, the country's chief medical officer, Dr. Francis Kateh, echoed this falsehood when he told reporters that "the hospital knew she had Ebola and they operated on her, which put them at more risk."[1]
Tributes came in from around the world, including her former employer, Médecins Sans Frontières, who wrote, "Salome's own experience of Ebola gave her incredible empathy for the patients that she worked so hard to care for...Our many staff who remember working with her speak of her strength and compassion, but also of her smile...She made a huge contribution to MSF's work at the height of the outbreak in Monrovia."[1] Ella Watson-Stryker, a MDF health promoter and colleague of Karwah, told Time magazine of the shock of her death, "To survive Ebola and then die in the larger yet silent epidemic of health system failure … I have no words."[4] Karwah's life was remembered on BBC Radio 4's obituary programme Last Word by Time magazine's Africa correspondent, Aryn Baker.[9]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Paye-Layleh, Jonathan (2017-03-02). "Ebola health care worker dies after childbirth in Liberia". CBC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ a b c Baker, Aryn (2017-02-27). "Liberian Ebola Fighter, a TIME Person of the Year, Dies in Childbirth". Time. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Mukpo, Ashoka (2017-03-01). "A Husband Loses His 'Best Friend' – Salome Karwah, Ebola Hero". NPR. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ryan, Lisa (2017-03-01). "Ebola Fighter Dies From Childbirth Complications After Hospital Staff Reportedly Refused to Help Her". New York. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ a b c d McVeigh, Karen (2017-02-28). "Ebola survivor and frontline fighter dies after childbirth complications". The Guardian. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ a b c d e Hersher, Rebecca (2014-10-25). "Producer's Notebook: Coming home from Monrovia to confusion and fear". NPR. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ a b Karwah, Salome (2014-10-11). "I survived Ebola for a reason – to help others recover". The Guardian. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ a b "Ebola nurse Salome Karwah died after hospital neglect, husband says". BBC News. 2017-03-01. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ Presenter: Matthew Bannister; Producer: Neil George; Interviewed Guest: Aryn Baker (26 March 2017). "Martin McGuinness, Chuck Berry, Sir Derek Walcott, Salome Karwah, Colin Dexter". Last Word. 17:07 minutes in. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 26 March 2017.