Macmillan was impressed, even slightly puzzled by Steven’s knowledge. ‘How come you know all this?’
‘Simone Ricard,’ said Steven.
‘Of course,’ said Macmillan, leaning back in his chair, ‘Dr Ricard and you were great friends. Such a tragedy.’
Steven’s friend, Simone Ricard, had been a doctor working with Médecins Sans Frontierès’. She had spent her entire medical career with the international medical charity and no one had understood more than her about outbreaks of infectious disease in Africa. Steven had often sought her advice, which had been gladly given and she had been much loved and hugely admired by all who knew her before her tragic death. She had been murdered while attending a medical conference in Prague where she had gone in an attempt to expose an international cover-up over the continuing presence of polio in the Middle East when it had been eradicated everywhere else.
Tally had been warmly welcomed back to Great Ormond Street where she was popular with staff and patients alike. She had been in the middle of reading patient notes — getting up to speed with what had been going on while she’d been away — when she had been informed that there was to be a meeting that afternoon of senior London hospital staff to discuss the developing situation in DRC. It was suggested that, having just come back and having no patients under her direct care at the moment, she might be best placed to attend. She had agreed.
Steven was first home. He made himself coffee and stood by the window, watching the river traffic on the Thames through the gap in the buildings opposite their flat in Marlborough Court. It was orderly and controlled unlike the river traffic in DRC he suspected. Confining the spread of Ebola under such conditions would be challenging in the extreme. He was thinking about this when he heard Tally come in.
‘How was it?’ he asked.
‘A bit odd,’ said Tally. ‘I’ve been at a meeting all afternoon about the Ebola outbreak and how it might possibly affect us.’
‘Me too,’ said Steven. He told her about the COBRA meeting, which he thought had largely been called for the benefit of the press, hoping they would help by assuring the general population that Her Majesty’s Government was keeping a watchful eye on the situation.’
‘That should do the trick,’ said Tally tongue in cheek. ‘In similar vein, London hospitals are being advised to be “prepared and vigilant”.’
‘Let’s eat out and exchange notes?’
‘Good idea.’
They showered and changed into more comfortable clothes before heading out to The Jade Garden, their favourite Chinese restaurant. Apart from the good food and a guaranteed welcome from the extrovert female owner who was always pleased to see them, it was within walking distance of Marlborough Court.
‘So, how does being advised to be prepared and vigilant translate into action?’ asked Steven.
‘Much was made of our state-of-the-art specialist units, which are ready to deal with any outbreak of deadly disease.’
‘How many patients can they handle?’
‘About ten,’ said Tally.
Steven let the ensuing silence join the conversation.
‘Not a lot?’ suggested Tally.
‘People don’t seem to understand what an epidemic is,’ said Steven. ‘Maybe it’s an age thing.’
‘You could be right,’ said Tally. ‘The vast majority — and that includes us — have never experienced one. Unfortunately, that includes the people giving advice and taking decisions. I remember my grandfather telling me about a typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen when he was a young man. It was caused by imported corned beef and the disease spread from person to person like wildfire until all the hospitals were full and the whole city had to be isolated.’
‘And that was at a time when we actually had specialist hospitals for infectious diseases,’ Steven interrupted.
‘Exactly. Now they’ve all been turned into luxury flats and we have specialist units which can handle ten patients.’
‘Absolutely everything depends on identifying the source of a potential epidemic quickly and dealing with it or the game could be lost.’
‘The official line is that it is not that easy to contract Ebola,’ said Tally.
‘They got that from a text book,’ snapped Steven.
Tally noted a note of anger in Steven’s voice. ‘You don’t agree?’
‘I remember talking about this with Simone before she died. She put me straight. The official view peddled by our Health Officers, is that you can only contract Ebola by coming into contact with the body fluids of an infected person and people are invited to see this as being unlikely.’
‘That’s almost word for word what I was taught.’
‘It conjures up thoughts of HIV and images of Princess Di shaking hands with patients to show how safe it was.’
‘Where are you going with this?’ asked Tally.
‘People are being encouraged to think the same way about Ebola... they assume they’ll be safe unless they have unprotected sex with an infected person.’
‘Ah.’
‘Ah indeed,’ said Steven. ‘The situation is completely different with Ebola; it’s one of the nastiest diseases on Earth. Ebola is one of the haemorrhagic viruses: infected people bleed from every orifice; even their eyes bleed and the fever can be such that they are no longer in control of their actions. The area surrounding them will be covered in body fluids. Clothing, bed sheets, blankets, the floor, the walls, doors... What are the chances of a nurse engaged in a wrestling match with a demented patient not coming into contact with body fluids?’
‘I think you’ve made your point.’
‘But the authorities still push the same old line that it’s not easy to contract.’
‘That is exactly what they stressed this afternoon,’ said Tally.
‘Simone used to say that these people are the kind of people who would learn to swim from a book. They’ll be absolutely fine until they hit the water and then they’ll drown because they didn’t know what it felt like. Reality can be very different from book learning and, by the time you adjust... it can all be too late.’
‘You still miss her.’
‘We only spoke a couple of times a year,’ said Steven, ‘but she was always worth listening to and she had such a wealth of experience in the field.’ Steven smiled. ‘She could never understand why I gave up being a doctor; insisted it was the best thing anyone could be.’
‘What did you say to that?’
‘I told her the real question was, why did I ever become one in the first place. You really should have much more than good school grades to get into medical school. They should require you to have something special along the lines of genuine care and concern for the people who will become your patients. Simone had that, you have it, I don’t.’
‘Don’t put yourself down, Dunbar. I seem to remember hearing from one of your ex-army colleagues that you had been single-handedly responsible for saving the lives of more than one wounded soldier under fire and in situations where no back-up was possible.’
‘That was different,’ Steven insisted. ‘Special ops... are different. ‘You’re in a bubble, you look out for each other, you’re outside society, you make and live by your own rules until the job’s done and then comes the difficult bit... you’re expected to re-join society and behave accordingly.’
‘That can’t be easy.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Steven. ‘Some guys never quite manage it.’
Tally decided to leave it at that and conceded with a small smile. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘tell me all about the COBRA meeting.’