As he drinks his morning coffee, Sebushishe, who helps lead front-line emergency operations for the International Medical Corps, checks on his teams scattered across eastern Congo, where they’re working on the response to the country’s Ebola outbreak. By 8 a.m., he’s at a treatment center in Bunia checking on patients, staff and supplies. His afternoons disappear into meetings and operational problems, and work can continue until 9 p.m., when he finally eats what’s often his only meal of the day.
Sebushishe’s long days point to one of the central problems in confronting Congo’s Ebola response: there are only so many experienced people to go around. When cases are reported somewhere new, that location has to be staffed with a new team. Sebushishe worries about colleagues who are already exhausted, including engineers building treatment centers “day and night,” and healthcare workers working punishing shifts in the face of trauma and loss.
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