Nur Ambulance Transcript

Nur Ambulance Transcript

We found that there were still looming fears around healthcare facilities, looming fears around ambulances. There was one instance where we went to this community that really didn't have a lot of cases of Ebola, so I don't think they received a lot of social mobiliz--like there wasn't a lot of community engagement efforts as they relate to ambulances. Ambulances were historically a terrifying thing. There were very few in the country prior to Ebola, and then more showed up to help transport people and to transport bodies and things like that. But if you really think about what ambulances do, a lot of people saw ambulances pick up their loved ones, go, and then their loved ones never came back, and then ambulances also have those big doors that close on people, there are sirens involved. People were really, really uncomfortable with the sirens. There were a couple of studies that took place that helped to understand why there was a level of discomfort or fear associated with the ambulance. It just wasn't--for us it's kind of like the norm. We think of ambulances, we think of safety is coming versus ambulances taking people away and them not coming back. This particular com--it was very important and I think CDC was pretty instrumental in instituting ambulance exhibits. They would take an ambulance into a community and open it up and show people and let them get--let leaders get inside, community leaders, to show it's not a scary thing. To show them that they knew the ambulances were cleaned with bleach solutions, chlorine solution. They knew that, but you give people enough time and rumors would start, like you get in the ambulance and some fume or bleach-related thing can kill you while you're in there. They actively went into communities, CDC went into communities or worked with partners to help sensitize. Well, this community didn't have a lot of Ebola cases, so there was less attention provided to them when it came to doing an ambulance exhibit, and we found that out the hard way. [laughs]