OET リスニング パートC：Ebola: A Doctor's Experience

Today, we're speaking to Dr. Kylie Munro,

a critical care physician from the United Kingdom,

who's recently returned from Liberia, where she volunteered to treat Ebola patients.

Dr. Munro, can you tell us a little bit about Ebola

and explain your reasons behind volunteering?

Sure.

Ebola virus is a severe, often fatal illness.

And without treatment, 9 out of 10 people who contract the virus die.

Many from dehydration, hyperbulimia from excessive vomiting,

loss of nutrients due to diarrhea, internal and external bleeding,

and sometimes kidney and liver failure.

Aggressive medical care is really simple by modern medical standards.

Saving lives might require as little as clean IV needles, fluids, and basic lab tests.

Things that are readily available in resource-rich parts of the world.

And we have them at our disposal all the time.

They're not considered fancy where we come from.

But that isn't always the case in remote parts of Africa,

where supplies can be scarce.

And how did the patients you were treating respond to your presence?

To give you some sort of idea of what we're dealing with,

the first two patients I treated were a brother and sister.

Both had developed Ebola symptoms,

which often present like flu, with fever and pain.

And straight away they fled to the bush because they were fearful of what might happen to them if they were treated.

They were found quickly because they were too weak to run.

But even with treatment, both later died.

We need to remember in 9 out of 10 cases, the victim's family never saw their loved ones again.

So the distrust about what we were doing wasn't entirely unfounded.

And is it true you had to wear a lot of specialized clothing while treating patients with Ebola?

Yeah, that's correct.

It's a little beyond the traditional white coat a lot of patients associate with doctors in a hospital setting.

I would wear my scrubs,

then I would put on a pair of thick rubber boots that came right up to my knees.

After that, I had to get dressed in a bodysuit,

then two pairs of gloves, a face mask,

a hood that covered my neck, and finally goggles.

The overall impression is similar to that of a spacesuit.

You can imagine in the tropical heat and humidity, it was suffocating.

You lose about three to five liters of sweat

and then spend the next two hours hydrating before you can go back in.

It does limit the level of care you're able to provide because it prevents you from having that physical contact with your patients.

And that reduces the amount of sensory input we usually get as part of our jobs as physicians,

but it also saves your life.

Can you tell us about one of the patients you treated while you were there?

Sure, one particular case involved a young girl

who was part of a small cohort of patients we had to deal with,

where someone in her family would be positive and someone else would be negative.

And once a person was negative, they had to leave the unit.

The little girl was six years old and she'd contracted the virus,

but her mother had not.

So I had no option but to escort her away.

Both the child and her mother were terrified about what lay ahead for them.

The girl died four days after they were separated.

I think in some ways this example encapsulates just how awful things could be during this outbreak

and the kind of personal tragedies that people have to live through.

Yes, I see.

So you're back home in Manchester.

When treating patients in the UK,

do you think you approach your job in a different way because of your work in Liberia?

Absolutely.

I do think it's made me sensitive to the limitations that are imposed on us,

making sure that you've made a connection with your patient.

One of the things we had to do for our patients in Liberia,

in addition to just witnessing their illness and doing what doctors do around the world,

which is to try and use medicines to blunt the worst effects of an illness,

is also to try and help them manage their own anxieties and fears.

I would like to think that I had been aware of it before,

but now I think I understand the principle in an entirely new way.

And do you believe Ebola is something for the rest of the world to be concerned about?

Well, I know the disease has spread further, and I'm not surprised.

In a recent case in Nigeria, a man infected with Ebola collapsed

at a crowded airport in Lagos, its busiest city.

He later died, and now authorities are closely monitoring up to 59 people he might have come in contact with.

The majority of people think that Ebola is a dramatic disease that kills people in no time.

The reality is that the incubation period is 21 days.

And because the disease can spread from an infected person to another person

via direct contact with blood or body fluids via the nose, mouth, or eyes,

or even from open wounds like cuts and abrasions,

the potential for spread outside of Africa is there.