WHO says go-slow would undermine Ebola response
* Liberia reports tentative signs of progress
* MSF says has empty beds at Monrovia treatment centre (Recasts with comment from unions)
By James Giahyue
MONROVIA, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Health workers in Liberia said on Monday they would press on with plans for a go-slow protest to support their claim for hazard pay as they fight an Ebola epidemic, despite a plea from the U.N. health agency that they avoid industrial action.
Nearly 2,000 people have died from Ebola in Liberia out of at least 3,696 infected. The West African state is at the centre of an epidemic that has killed more than 3,400 people there and in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea
The hemorrhagic virus has also taken a heavy toll on health workers and this has galvanized the National Health Workers Association of Liberia, said its secretary general George Williams.
"Let the government revisit health workers' wages and allowances and make sure that they have insurance that is appropriate and proper," he told Reuters, adding that the go-slow would begin on Friday unless union demands were met.
"Health workers have made up their minds. Some of these things have been on the table since April. The demands have to be met," he said. The union represents thousands of workers, though it was unclear if all would heed its call to action.
Earlier, the representative of the World Health Organisation in Liberia, Peter Graaff, said it was crucial that the workers did not undermine the effort to combat Ebola.
"My appeal to all the health workers is that you have been so brave to go and work in the ETU's (Ebola Treatment Units). This is not the moment to compromise all that you have achieved," Graaff told a news conference.
"Going slow means that those who want to work will have to work too hard and then put themselves at risk. Going slow means putting the lives for those you care for unnecessarily at risk," he said, adding that there should be a negotiated solution.
SIGNS OF PROGRESS?
In the United States, the fifth American to contract Ebola in West Africa arrived for treatment on Monday while the first patient diagnosed with the deadly virus on U.S. soil was in critical condition at a Dallas hospital.
Assistant Minister of Health for Preventive Services, Tolbert Nyensuwah, reported tentative signs that efforts by the government and the international community to respond to Ebola were starting to bear fruit.
The number of beds for Ebola patients have increased from 200 on Sept 1 to 570. There are now 14 testing laboratories as opposed to 4 at the start of last month, which allows for 500 specimens to be tested daily as opposed to 150, he said.
"We projected (a need for) 1,000 beds and we want to know why we still have empty beds. Is it that we are not taking care of the patients? Is it that the disease is gone, which we don't want to say," Nyensuwah told a news conference. He referred to Montserrado county, which includes the capital.
"If I show you the data from Lofa County, you will be astonished. It's improving," he said, speaking of a county in northern Liberia.
A hallmark of the epidemic has been treatment centres turning away ill people for lack of beds, thus increasing patient suffering and risking the spread of the virus through communities as families provide care.
The emergency coordinator for aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Liberia, Laurence Sailly, said that its treatment centre, ELWA 3, in the capital Monrovia was not currently full.
"Up to yesterday (Sunday) we only had 120 patients so we still have beds for more patients. If people have Ebola in the community they can come to ELWA 3," Sailly told a news conference.http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/06/health-ebola-liberia-idUSL6N0S146C20141006?rpc=401
