A Shasta County nurse practitioner has recently returned from 2 months of treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. Susie Foster, FNP, has successfully completed her 21 days of quarantine at home in Redding, and has returned to work at Hill Country Health and Wellness Center in Round Mountain, where she provides primary care to patients of all ages.
“We are so proud of Susie for going to Africa, and so happy to have her return safely,” says Lynn Dorroh, Hill Country’s Executive Director. While Foster was gone, her colleagues filled in for her, and assured her regular patients that “all the news we were hearing was good,” said Dorroh. Patients overwhelmingly expressed support for Foster’s mission, as well as amazement that someone from “a tiny place like Round Mountain” was actually in Sierra Leone, working to treat patients and stop the spread of Ebola.
Foster worked in the town of Port Loko at the Maforki Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU), as part of a program run by Partners in Health. She received three days of cold training in Boston and three days of hot training at the ETU before she began treating patients with the team. There she worked closely with the pediatric and adult teams to start IVs, carry out medical treatments, and keep patients comfortable. “Physically and mentally it was the hardest work I have ever done, but it was also the most rewarding work I have completed to date” says Foster. About her experience in West Africa Foster goes on to say “Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world. I have heard it said many times that Ebola has broken their health care infrastructure, but in reality Sierra Leone has never had a solid health care infrastructure to break. For example, there is no system in place to care for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes. The people of Sierra Leone have access to free HIV testing, but the medications to treat HIV are expensive and not readily available. It was quickly apparent to me that I was going to have to make medical decisions on a regular basis that I would never have to make in the United States. I am saddened that where you are born in the world determines your health path so greatly. I feel stronger than ever that every person in the world should have access to the same level of health care.”
This was not Foster’s first time to provide medical care in parts of the world hit hard by disease or disaster. In 2010 she worked in Haiti after the earthquake, and has also worked in villages in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Foster who is originally from Sacramento, received her B.S. in Nursing from the University of San Francisco, and an M.S. in Nursing with specialization as a Family Nurse Practitioner from Sonoma State University.
Foster and Hill Country consulted with the Shasta County Department of Public Health before her departure to Sierra Leone, and worked closely with them throughout her quarantine period. “My 21 day quarantine period was challenging. I went from a situation where I didn’t have time to think about anything outside of treating patients and only having 3 days off in 9 weeks, to coming home to an empty house and nothing but time to think about how I was feeling and the experience I had just been through. Both my husband and dog were able join me back home after 11-plus weeks of being apart.”
For additional information on the services Hill Country Clinic provides please visit www.hillcountryclinic.org.
-from press release
