#HNNHealth We need SUPPLIES cries out #Ebola Aid workers in #SierraLeone where care is POOR!

US troops working with African troops

Bureaucracy and red tape are slowing the budding Ebola aid effort in West Africa, aid groups complain. The U.S. federal government now says 4,000 troops will be deployed in Liberia alone to help distribute supplies, at a cost of $750 million for the first six months. The response from aid organizations: Hurry up.

"We need the stuff down there right now. The bureaucracy is not responsive to the magnitude of this crisis,” said Ken Isaacs, the vice president of international projects and government relations at Samaritan’s Purse, one of the main aid groups working in Liberia.

And in Sierra Leone, an opposition politician says a shipping container filled with medical gear and mattresses has been held up at a port for more than a month. Alpha Chernor Bah said the container is one of four carrying $500,000 worth of supplies that he has arranged for shipment from the U.S. "I am trying to help because this is a public health emergency to save lives," he told The Associated Press. "The country is in a crisis period, and there should be no red tape in clearing the container from the port."

The response in Sierra Leone is poor on the side of the government as I said in my previous write ups. The use of social media is poor and people are not being communicated to very well. That Facebook page of the sanitation department does not provide a good channel of communication with the public considering this is a country with a million people quarantines after a 3 day lockdown to test the whole country. I have pleaded with the ministry of sanitation since the firing of Minister Miata Kargbo to open the wall of that page especially with that lockdown weekend in September when everyone was grounded at home. 

NOTHING was done! The saga continues!

With files from NBC News

#DrKOO

@HealthReports