Health workers who are taking care of people with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo went on a protest on Thursday. They were upset because they had not been paid and they were not getting the money they were supposed to get for working with Ebola patients. This protest made it hard for some health facilities to operate.
The health workers had their protest outside the governors office in Bunia. Bunia is a city in Ituri Province where most of the Ebola casesre. The health workers said they had not gotten their pay or the extra Ebola money since the outbreak started in May.
This protest is not the problem with the Ebola response. There have been protests about not getting paid on time. These problems are making it harder to stop the Ebola outbreak. The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is now the biggest Ebola outbreak in history.
Some of the people who were protesting were nurses who take care of Ebola patients. One of the protesters Edouige Makosi said that if the health workers do not get the support they need it will be hard to stop the Ebola outbreak. Edouige Makosi said “if things keep going like this the Ebola outbreak will not end in Ituri Province. We need the people in charge to help us find a solution to this problem.”
The people in charge have said that the reason the health workers were not getting paid was because of problems with getting the money to them.. They did not say anything about the latest protest.
The health workers are working in a difficult area. The area is away and there are armed groups that are causing problems. These groups have even attacked the health workers. Disrupted the healthcare services.
The head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday. He told the people in charge that they need to take care of the health workers. The medical charity Doctors Without Borders also said that the Ebola outbreak is spreading quickly. They said that the people who are responding to the outbreak are not getting to the affected areas enough to stop the disease from spreading.
The protest by the health workers has made people more worried about the Ebola response, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The fact that the health workers are not getting paid and the security problems and the Ebola outbreak is spreading quickly are all making it harder to stop the disease. The Ebola outbreak is a problem and the health workers who are taking care of the patients are not getting the support they need.
