Ebola Help for Sierra Leone Is Nearby, but Delayed on the Docks

NEW YORK TIMES        OCT. 6, 2014

New York Times describes in detail how disorganized local government response, demands for shipping fee payments, and perhaps even politics, have delayed unloading medical supplies sitting on the docks in Sierra Lenone.

By Adam Nossiter

Freetown, Sierra Leone -- A shipping container packed with protective gowns, gloves, stretchers, mattresses and other medical supplies needed to help fight Sierra Leone’s exploding Ebola epidemic has been...locked inside a dented container at the port since Aug. 9.

“We are still just hoping (!!!) — which sounds like BEGGING — that this container should be cleared,” one government official wrote in a frantic email to his superiors, weeks after the container arrived.

In many ways, the delay reflects what some in the growing ranks of international officials pouring into this nation to fight Ebola describe as a chaotic, disorganized government response to the epidemic.

 Chernoh Alpha Bah in Freetown. Medical supplies that he helped ship to fight Ebola have been sitting in a shipping container there for almost two months. Credit Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/world/africa/sierra-leone-ebola-medical-supplies-delayed-docks.html?ref=world&_r=0