A CONSULTANT fighting the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa has revealed that all but one of his NHS colleagues working with an Italian emergency agency in Sierra Leone have resigned.

Professor John Wright, who lives in Guiseley, and is based at Bradford Royal Infirmary, is one of a team of 30 NHS staff and 25 Norwegian doctors and nurses who are working in an Ebola treatment centre being built by the Royal Engineers in Moyambe.

In his blog, featured on the Telegraph & Argus website, he wrote that most of his colleagues quit because the Italian agency to which they were assigned, Emergency, had a blanket approach to treating all patients the same.

He said: “All but one of my 12 NHS colleagues working with Emergency at Laka resigned. I wrote about Emergency in an earlier blog — a noble philosophy of offering Western standards of medical care to Africa, but one I felt was misguided. Apparently my colleagues feel so too, and have revolted over the blanket interventional approach given to patients — catheters, IV lines, central lines, toxic drugs injected into all of them, even though many just need a compassionate end-of-life care.”

He said after problems setting up the centre in Moyamba, the job of looking after patients had felt like calm.

Prof Wright said: “The flow of Ebola centres is one way — from suspect ward through to confirmed wards and finally the convalescence ward and out.

“The suspect tent is empty but for two crying children, about 18 months old and four years old, prisoners in makeshift cots of upturned plastic tables with cheap orange fencing wrapped around the legs to form walls."

Prof Wright described confirmed Ebola patients, some sitting outside the wards but in fenced off areas.

He said: “There is more evidence of diarrhoea and vomiting on the floors and in the buckets. Most of the patients require simple nursing care: pain relief, fluids and anti-sickness drugs.”

Prof Wright said his first trip "over the Ebola fence" lasted one-and-a-half hours, much longer that he had expected in the African mid-morning heat.

Meanwhile, Rotarians in Brighouse are trying to raise £60,000 by the end of the year to help buy and ship out two military 4x4-style ambulances. Donations are welcome to the Rotary Club of Brighouse Ambulance Account — Barclays sort code 20-35-84, account number 0350 8714.