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Comment by tjohns | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, Nancy Writebol (one of the two who received that drug) isn't a doctor, though she did volunteer at ELWA Hospital. From what I read, her official job title is "Personnel Coordinator", and she is also a certified nursing assistant. She was also helping disinfect staff leaving the isolation ward.

Regardless, if we've only got a few doses of an experimental drug available, I think it's totally fair to give it to the folks who are putting their lives on the line to help treat hundreds of others.

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Here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/04/nancy-writebol-ebol... they call her a missionary

So? I realize you're not saying anything negative, but let's remember that she was there in the middle of a terrifying epidemic, helping people.

I'm not particularly religious, nor am I a Christian, but I don't feel the outrage that so many others do online about missionaries. To the contrary, I have a deep appreciation for anyone helping people in the midst of medical emergencies, regardless of motivation.

Now, do I think that American Missionaries, or any ex-pats, should have priority medical care over others, particularly local medical staff? That's the real issue here. What were the criteria for finding patients?

Did you see that much outrage in my comment that you had to reply?

> Now, do I think that American Missionaries, or any ex-pats, should have priority medical care over others, particularly local medical staff? That's the real issue here. What were the criteria for finding patients?

I don't think any officials considered that. They have just airlifted her because she was helping the sick - i.e. she was more of a nurse than missionary.

I'm pretty sure she and the other doctor were airlifted because they were Americans. The other high-profile doctors who have caught the disease haven't been evacuated to the US for treatment, because they're Africans.

While I share the same general sentiment, and I don't know what laws the US has about quarantining people, I think the big factor to keep in mind here is that as American citizens, they have every right to return to the US -- they just happen to be returning for medical treatment. Whereas foreign nationals with infectious diseases (much less Ebola) could be turned away as a matter of routine.

Medical missionaries are a real thing. "Missionary" is a pretty broad term, and "evangelization through works" is the focus of a lot of missionary work. Not all missionaries are involved in preaching as such, and even fewer are exclusively involved in such work.

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