>> So we can begin to think about some of the resources issues,
which are everything from physical resources, meaning roads.
How do we transport people from their home to a healthcare facilities.
>> Right. >> The facilities themselves,
do they exist.
And then what recess are, resources are available in that facility really.
Water for infection control.
How do you do infection control without a water supply, electricity, and
also human resources.
Right? So that's a big,
big challenge here in the case of these three West African countries that have
a real dearth of healthcare professionals.
>> So let me give you an example of,
of an ethical issue that confronts us around that exact issue.
So, we have people at Emory and at other universities and
at other health care systems around the country who would like to go and
volunteer their time to try to help out in Western Africa.
And many, many do.
And they're heroes, as far as I'm concerned.
However, we have a 21 day quarantine when they get back.
So, I leave, I take my vacation time to
go to Sierra Leone, and to treat people if I'm a health care provider.
Now, I come back, I get a week's vacation or maybe two weeks,
and I'm quarantined for 21 days.
What is the obligation of my employer, of this university to pay someone or
give them extra leave time or whatever it is for those 21 days for
something they did voluntarily on their vacation?
It's something we talked about on the Ebola Task Force,
which I sit on here at Emory.
And I think institutions, one of the ways in which they can
express an ethical value of helping out in these kinds of dire
circumstances is to allow employees who are trained to go and help.
And then to support them when they come back if they do need to
be absent from work because of, you know, government required quarantine.
So, that's an example of a way in which we can have an ethical conversation
here about our own behavior that has some impact on a place like Liberia or
Sierra Leone.
>> Absolutely, and
that's been hugely important in terms of the humanitarian response.
We know that there have been really very few providers who have been willing to go,
and then those who are willing to go face these kinds of challenges when they
get back.
So, those are real questions for us.
Another issue you raised is the issue of trust.
>> Yeah.
>> And we've talked a little bit about these three west African countries,
Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, and their very complicated histories.
>> Sure.
>> How does trust play into the specifics of Ebola and
the ethical issues behind Ebola?
>> So, trust is, is difficult to win and easy to lose.
And what's fascinating is you can have different manifestations of trust.
So, for example, in some countries, the governments are trusted, but
foreigners coming in are not trusted.
In other countries, the government is distrusted, and there's more trust of the,
of, of aid agencies coming in from other places.
In some countries, they don't trust anybody.
So we know, in Western Africa there were examples of where people would come in and
they would spray, trying to disinfect areas, but
they were thought of as have, as spraying Ebola.
And they were attacked or, or they,
the, in some cases makeshift hospitals were torn down.
And so trust becomes fundamental to the way in which we think about our
relationship to other countries.