It was categorized by a special committee of the World Health Organization as a public health emergency of international concern on August 8, 2014, and persisted until March 2016 when the end of the emergency period was finally declared (WHO, 2014). It started in December 2013 in the Forest region of Southeastern Guinea and subsequently spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia. The West Africa Ebola epidemic was the deadliest epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) the world has ever seen, and one of the most significant international public health emergencies of 2014-2015. Building on participants’ accounts, we outline a number of considerations for optimizing end-of-life palliative care during current and future public health emergencies, including for COVID-19. An overarching message in participants’ accounts was that ideally more would have been done for the dying in ETCs. Participants emphasized several challenges to such death in Ebola treatment centres (ETCs), as well as practices they deemed helpful to alleviating dying patients’ suffering. This involves accompaniment to facilitate a peaceful death, the possibility of passing on final messages to family members, prayer, and particular practices to enact respect for the bodies of the deceased. Of key importance in the Guinean context is the culturally valued experience of “dying in honour”. Healthcare delivery in humanitarian emergencies must remain respectful of patient preferences but also local and contextual values and norms. Analysis was team based and applied an interpretive descriptive approach. It consisted of 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with individuals impacted by EVD in a Guinean ETC: either as patients in an ETC, healthcare providers, healthcare providers who were also EVD patients at one point, family relations who visited patients who died in an ETC, or providers of spiritual support to patients and family. Its goal was to document and deepen understanding of experiences and expectations related to end-of-life palliative care for patients infected with Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West African Ebola treatment centres (ETCs) during the 2013–2016 epidemic. This qualitative study is part of a larger project on palliative care in humanitarian contexts. With no cure and a high mortality rate, Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks require preparedness for the provision of end-of-life palliative care.
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