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SEVENTEEN MEDICAL STAFF left for Sierra Leone today to man the first Irish-run Ebola treatment centre in the region.
The group, which includes doctors, nurses and paramedics, will arrive in Freetown tomorrow morning and will join up with Goal’s team already on the ground.
They’ll be working at a €15 million, 100-bed treatment unit located in the town of Port Loko, 40okm north of the capital Freetown. The facility was constructed by the UK Government and will be ready to receive its first patients in about two weeks.
Goal are set to manage the facility with the staff who flew out today completing a week of training before they travel to the centre.
In total, 500 staff from Ireland, UK and all around the world will work at the unit over the next nine months.
Goal CEO Barry Andrews met the group at Heathrow Airport before they left for West Africa and described them as “heroes”.
“If we really want to defeat this virus, we desperately need the experience and commitment of doctors and nurses to help us care for the many thousands of sick and dying patients who are not receiving adequate treatment,” he said.
The people I met today are heroes, and I was glad I had the opportunity to tell them so this afternoon. However, we need even more people like this to join the fight. We expect to be dealing with Ebola patients for many, many months to come.
The Port Loko area where the facility is located is currently experiencing some of the highest numbers of cases of Ebola in West Africa.
Goal already have close to 200 staff in the Sierra Leone implementing aid and development programmes in Freetown and Kenema.
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Read that as Meth lab at first
He’s had enough Meth by the look of him
He wouldn’t be the first politician to tell an untruth.
Ah hahahahaha
So now that he got his lab, he goes back to supporting the blueshirts?
Some socialist Halligan is.
@T Beckett is back:
John has to get re-elected, it just proves the independents are as bad, remember he got the lab he gets the glory
Forget about the rest of the hospitals in the country…. one trick politician .. groucho marx lookalike.
I doubt that any of the patients who benefit from this, will be very worried about who he looks like.
@Patrick j Brady:
I beg your pardon.
Mediterranean Playboy look.
Good description Alex. .
A mobile cath lab??? Is this a couple of polish plumbers in the back of a van?…
Build an actual one instead of paying huge money to a private company
Well done John.
Of course political considerations outside The Pale are an alien concept to some people but the Déise salutes you.
Alex
No they don’t for a half baked solution
@Alex Falcone: John is that you?
Well said Alex great his hard work has resulted in a 2nd Cath lab and well needed. Without him going on about it we wouldn’t have got it so well done John keep up the good work.
Didnt the report say another Catherine lab wasn’t needed . Didn’t the HSE , Simon Harris say one wasn’t needed. Now a mobile one is needed?
Cath lab
The report was flawed. It underestimated the population of the region and the government know it.
He knows we wont be.bought that easy. Not good enough.
I need to see the way this contract has been written, the exact wording & timeline
Super Mario is looking old…
Or one of the Harry Enfield scousers
Edna will give anything to stay in power.
Halligan sold his soul for a Lab ,always will be remembered as a turncoat
So it’s both secure and mobile at the same time, ideal.
It’s been bought in to address the waiting list.
The much bigger issue however is…..
The need to travel to Cork in an emergency when the Cath lab is not operating (after 5 pm on week days and no service AT ALL at weekends) has implications for patient outcomes.
It’s unbelievable to plan to have a journey time that’s on the limit of the recommended time limit (90 mins) for arrival at Cath lab in emergency heart attack scenarios.
That Waterford to Cork trip by road is not a journey someone should be advocating as best practice for someone whose had a heart attack.
Helicopter is needed but very expensive .
It needs to be remembered that Waterford is actually a city not some tiny Kilgarvan type village
He barks like a Wolfhound but has a bite of a Yorkie, he just keeps backing down & afraid to upset the apple cart!
He’s not a very honest man, Remember water.
Gombeen
They might consider making the current cath lab bigger first. They one they have is tiny…. You wouldn’t swing a cat in it
have your say