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British medics who have volunteered to fight the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone have accused the Government of failing to offer them proper emergency back-up if they get infected.
The government is planning to despatch up to 1,500 NHS volunteers to the west African nation over coming months, as part of a ?125m aid programme that a force of 800 British troops began rolling out last month.
But officials have refused to guarantee that any medic who catches the virus will be flown back to Britain for treatment, insisting that most cases can be dealt by a British army clinic that has been set up in the capital, Freetown.
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"If a British national looks like they have symptoms of Ebola, they should on a plane within 12 hours in my opinion," said one senior medic. "Instead, the government wants to wait until somebody is sick enough that they might need dialysis, at which point you might not be fit for transport by plane anyway."
The medic issued the warning as the first tranche of 30 NHS volunteers arrived in Sierra Leone for a five-week stint working at Ebola treatment centres. Should any of them fall sick, they will be looked after in a 12-bed centre staffed by British Army medical experts specially set aside for health care workers.
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However, Ebola sufferers whose condition continues to worsen can require dialysis or ventilators. Some medics that believe that for that reason, it would be better simply to evacuate people immediately. The specialist evacuation planes that are used to transport Ebola sufferers also have limited ability to do so if the patient is suffering particularly acute symptoms.
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