Ebola-iculous: A Physician Encounters the Ebola Capital of the World

During the height of the Ebola epidemic one hospital refuses to shut its doors… In August 2014 Dr. James Appel is called to leave the Republic of Chad where he’s been working for the last 10 years to go help out at the SDA Cooper Hospital in Liberia. James embarks on a four-day journey from Abéché near the Sudanese border across the deserts of Chad to N’Djamena, then on to Addis Abiba, Accra and finally Monrovia where he begins working at one of the few hospitals still open in the Liberian capital. The fear of Ebola and the real fact that many health care workers have been dying of the hemorrhagic fever have left hospitals closed and people without anywhere to go when they’re sick. Led by American surgeon Gillian Seton and staffed with a group of hard-core Liberians, the SDA Cooper Hospital has decided to stay open during the crisis and they are swamped. In vivid detail Dr. Appel describes the challenges of keeping a hospital open and running during one of the most fearsome plagues of our time…