Nurses defy a health-workers’ strike in Liberia
Conference pledges $5.4B for rebuilding in Gaza
MONROVIA, Liberia — Some nurses in Liberia defied calls for a strike on Monday and turned up for work at hospitals amid the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
In view of the danger of their work, members of the National Health Workers Association are demanding higher monthly hazard pay. The association has more than 10,000 members, though the health ministry says only about 1,000 of those are employed at sites receiving Ebola patients.
Some nurses were turning up for work Monday, according to Gobee Logan, a doctor at a government hospital in Tubmanburg, 40 miles from the capital of Monrovia.
Ebola is believed to have killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa, and Liberia has recorded the highest death toll. Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, like blood and vomit, putting health workers at particular risk.
With many treatment centers overflowing with patients, those providing care and with often inadequate protective gear have become infected in large numbers. The latest World Health Organization toll said about 400 health workers have contracted the disease, nearly half of those in Liberia.
The hardest hit countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea had too few health workers even before the outbreak began, and infections among health workers has only further hampered their ability to respond.
The call to strike was for nurses, physician assistants, lab technicians and other health workers, but not doctors.
CAIRO — An international donor conference here on reconstructing Gaza garnered $5.4 billion in pledges. But even as diplomats highlighted the contributions, they warned that the effort to rebuild the Palestinian enclave could be jeopardized unless a diplomatic solution was found to break the cycle of violence between the militant group Hamas and Israel.
Borge Brende, the Norwegian foreign minister who played a role in organizing the conference, announced the total sum, which was boosted by a hefty $1 billion contribution from Qatar. Half of the $5.4 billion that was promised is to be used for rebuilding efforts in Gaza, while the remainder is intended to support the budget of the Palestinian Authority through 2017.
That sum is less than the $8.5 billion Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, had requested for both purposes. But Western officials noted that the contributions could grow since a number of nations like the United States made their pledges on an annual basis.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, told the conference that there was an urgent need for the aid in Gaza, where almost a third of the population had been displaced by conflict. Even now, he said, electrical blackouts last up to 18 hours a day and more than 450,000 people do not have access to the municipal water supply.
“Gaza remains a tinderbox,” Ban said. “The people desperately need to see results in their daily lives.”
Still, diplomats said that any gains could be at risk unless progress was made toward a political settlement that reduced the likelihood that a conflict between Hamas and Israel might erupt yet again.
“We need a political process that is different from 2009 and 2012,” Brende said, referring to the reconstruction efforts that were undertaken only to be followed by another conflict.
“This is the third time in less than six years that together with the people of Gaza, we have been forced to confront a reconstruction effort,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the conference. “This is the third time in less than six years that we’ve seen war break out and Gaza left in rubble.”
In remarks to reporters Sunday night, Kerry said that a political solution on Gaza — one that met Israel’s security needs as well as the Palestinians’ insistence that their political rights be respected — could not be fully achieved without progress toward a broader Middle East peace deal. And Kerry signaled that he had not given up on the idea of forging a comprehensive peace settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis.