Dr. Céline Goundermedical correspondent, CBS News · physician, epidemiologist, medical journalist

A healthcare worker in Sierra Leone gave her a choice she'll never forget

Name: A healthcare worker in Sierra Leone gave her a choice she'll never forget
Uploaded: 2026-06-06T20:01:49+00:00
Duration: 45 s
Channel: Dr. Céline Gounder
Description: In this first‑person narrative, a clinician recounts her experiences working in rural Ebola treatment units (ETUs) in Sierra Leone. She describes seeing…

6 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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In this first‑person narrative, a clinician recounts her experiences working in rural Ebola treatment units (ETUs) in Sierra Leone. She describes seeing gloves repeatedly washed with bleach and hung to dry, a practice born of severe supply shortages. While conducting infection‑control spot checks in Port Loko, she confronts a community health worker about the safety of reusing these gloves, warning that bleach degradation could lead to breakage and infection. The health worker replies, “Doc, what do you want me to do? My choices are those gloves or no gloves,” highlighting the stark ethical dilemma faced by frontline staff when essential protective equipment is unavailable.

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I use this photo if I can as an illustrative thing for my students. This is a photo that I took, which was gloves that were cleaned by bleach and hung up on one of the ETUs, the community worker ETUs that were being run in a really rural area in Sierra Leone. And the second time I was deployed, I was doing infection control spot checks in addition to running the ETU in Port Loko. And I turned to the community health worker who was just like amazing, taking care of all these folks in his village, right? And I said, Amazing. You shouldn't really be reusing those. The more times you wash those in bleach, the chances are it's going to break down and you might get infected. And he turned to me and he smiled and he said, Doc, what do you want me to do? My choices are those gloves or no gloves.