From victim to caregiver: An interview with a Liberian Ebola survivor

Last June, Siah Tamba’s friend got sick. A nurse aid, Tamba did what any friend would do: she took care of her, bathed her, fed her, and used her medical expertise to help her. Unfortunately, Tamba’s compassion put her own life at risk. Five days after falling ill, her friend died. Two days after that, Tamba was hospitalized with Ebola.

UNMEER: When were you diagnosed with Ebola?

Siah Tamba: It was in the month of June.

UNMEER: How did you feel when you first learned that you had the disease?

ST: When I got diagnosed as Ebola positive, I felt very, very bad. I even started crying. When my family found out I was Ebola positive, they felt very, very bad. But still, I never lost hope because I am a Christian. I still had confidence in the lord that I will go through with it, that I will survive in the end.

UNMEER: How did you get infected?

ST: I got Ebola when I treated my friend, who was also a nurse aid. I treated her for four days, and on the fifth she passed out. The treatment that I give to her was opening the line, hanging a drip on her, and then sometimes I help her in terms of giving her baths. But actually when I was in that, giving care to her, I never knew that she was carrying the virus. But when she died, after two days I started coming down with the symptoms…I went at the hospital, and then they tested me. The symptoms that I started experiencing are severe headache, severe fever, and generalized body pain. After two days of my being in the ETU, I started passing bloody stools and sever vomiting.

UNMEER: How long were you in the ETU?

ST: I was in the unit for two weeks.

UNMEER: How did you feel when you were released?

ST: When I went into the community I experienced a lot of stigma. For example, you go into the community to go buy something, and you go and give your money to the sellers – they don’t take the money from you. Because why? You contracted the virus. So still you are not free, even though you had been treated and then you had been pronounced Ebola negative – still they have that thinking, that fear in them. And for me, the most stigma that I really experienced, that pains me most, is where I was living…the owner drove me out of her house because I contracted the virus. So when I even came out of the ETU, I was relocated to another community, and the community also knew that I contracted the virus, so I went through a lot of stigma in life.

UNMEER: Do you still experience that level of stigma, or has it improved?

ST: For now there is a bit improvement, because what I do, the same certificate they gave me as a survivor, I use that certificate and then educate them. Telling them that yes I contracted the virus before, but now I was treated and pronounced Ebola negative, so they should not be afraid of me.

UNMEER: You’re now a nurse at the IOM Ebola Treatment Unit in Sinje, Liberia. Can you tell me a little bit about what you do here?

ST: I am a caregiver working as a Nurse Aid in this ETU, which means that I’m a caretaker of the patients and also help the nurses. I also take care of the little kids when they don’t have their parents around – changing their diapers, bathing them, also giving them medications.

UNMEER: What made you want to come work with Ebola patients after you were cured?

ST: As a survivor, I know what Ebola means, more than you who are standing here that have not really gone through that struggle. You see by you working in this kind of place, this ETU, taking care of the Ebola patients, you do so many works, giving them courage, giving them hope. So, actually I think it was necessary to come here and work in the fight of Ebola because I want to see Ebola getting out of Liberia. I also want for my colleagues who contract this disease to be just like me as a survivor.

UNMEER: The patients must know that you’re a survivor, because you don’t wear a full PPE (personal protective equipment). What do you tell the patients when they ask about you and your experience?

ST: For some patients, you know, they’ll be sitting around very sad. I go around them and I set myself as an example – that I was once like you, pronounced Ebola positive, but when I went to the hospital the doctors and the nurses told me that if I take my medication, eat, and drink more water – by me doing that, I will be able to get better. I tell them to not lose hope, take courage…if you do that, by the grace of god you can bring your life back.

UNMEER: Thank you for your time, and for your work.