AMA President, A/Prof Brian Owler, ABC News Radio, 26 September 2014

Subject: Evacuation of Australian volunteers if they contract Ebola while working in West Africa

SANDY ALOISI: The Australian Medical Association wants the Federal Government to strike a deal with other nations to evacuate any Australian volunteers if they contract Ebola while working in West Africa. The Foreign Minister has already warned the Government won't evacuate Australians if they become infected. The virus has already claimed the lives of more than 2800 people and there are fears that hundreds of thousands of people will become infected. The AMA President is Brian Owler, and he joins us now.

Good morning to you.

BRIAN OWLER: Good morning.

SANDY ALOISI: Was it a shock to you that the Foreign Minister announced that if anyone - any Australian does become infected with Ebola overseas that they wouldn't be evacuated?

BRIAN OWLER: Look, it doesn't necessarily surprise me. It is difficult to evacuate someone from West Africa to Australia just in terms of flight times and logistics. But I don't think that's stopping people from volunteering from going to West Africa and doing the sort of humanitarian work that's needed there and providing people with medical care. And what we would like to see is the government, say, coming to some arrangement with its so-called allies that it's working with in other forums, such as the UK and the US and France, to actually have a way of treating those health care workers if the worst should happen and they became infected.

SANDY ALOISI: Do we know, Brian Owler, just how many Australians are volunteering in West Africa?

BRIAN OWLER: I don't know the number but there's certainly a handful that are over there and continuing to go backwards and forwards to West Africa, usually spending, say, three weeks at a time and mainly working through NGOs such as MSF and Red Cross. And so we do have a number of experts that have been over there not only providing direct medical help but just expertise in terms of trying to control the outbreak.

SANDY ALOISI: And we've heard just this morning from the US President, Barack Obama, at the UN in New York saying that more needs to be done so, clearly, these volunteers are joining thousands, I would imagine, volunteers around the world who are heading to West Africa to try to stop the spread particularly as thousands of people are predicted to become infected.

BRIAN OWLER: Well, I think we need a much more concerted effort. I mean, what we're witnessing is an evolving humanitarian tragedy of unprecedented proportions. I mean, this is the sort of thing of Rwandan proportions - different reason, obviously, but you can see this evolving and we've got centres such as the CDC in the United States, Centres for Disease Control, who are actually saying this could actually get past the million, I think, is the figure - the 1.4 million cases.

Now, if that happens, I mean, that is unprecedented. We've also got claims from the WHO this morning saying that if the situation may be such that the disease has become endemic in West Africa - now, that means that it's basically there to stay unless there's a very significant program that's rolled out to eradicate the disease such as has been done for things like smallpox in the past.

SANDY ALOISI: Is there something that the Australian Government could do officially to contribute to the many, many people who are already there trying to battle Ebola? Would you like to see some sort of official response from the Federal Government?

BRIAN OWLER: Well, I think that's the - we need a global response and Australia needs to be part of that. We can contrast, if you like, the readiness to go and act in centres such as Iraq and Syria, and I'm not downplaying the threat of ISIS and the significance of that threat, but there's a great willingness there to act and send resources.

I think the humanitarian crisis that's in West Africa is just as important and, in fact, may end up affecting more people than the current situation in the Middle East. Now, there are security issues that arise when you have nations that have a situation where the whole economy, essentially, stops and fails. These are very impoverished nations to begin with and they basically become set up…destabilisation and for radicals to set up there.

So I think that many people including at the UN and WHO have talked about this as a humanitarian crisis but also there are other issues - economic, social and security issues - that follow when nations don't actually respond and come to the assistance of a nation - of the nations in West Africa.

SANDY ALOISI: Indeed, and I just - I finally want to ask you whether you're going to put your concerns to the Federal Government itself and ask that there is some sort of system in place to evacuate any Australian who may become infected.

BRIAN OWLER: Well, we've been raising this for a number of weeks and I know that this is something that has been actively worked on within - people working within the Department. Look, it is difficult and I know that some countries are not going to commit to actually accepting a patient from West Africa that became infected but there are other logistics as well. I mean, we have mobile intensive care.

We have mobile hospitals and, in fact, the US also have the ability to treat people and give them first world care on an aircraft in West Africa. So there are many things that can be overcome, but what the MSF and other NGOs are asking for is speed on the ground, health care workers that can actually provide the direct care for patients so that we don't have patients literally dying in the streets like we're seeing now.

SANDY ALOISI: Yes, it's such an unimaginable situation. Brian Owler, thank you so much.

BRIAN OWLER: Thank you.

SANDY ALOISI: Brian Owler there. He's the President of the Australian Medical Association calling on the Federal Government to strike some sort of deal with other countries to evacuate any Australians who are volunteering in West Africa who might contract the Ebola virus.

26 September 2014

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