Shropshire Ebola doctor: 'I was 'just doing my job'
A Shropshire psychiatrist who travelled to West Africa to help fight Ebola said he was "just doing his job", after Prime Minister David Cameron said those who travelled to the region should be awarded a new medal.
Dr Martin Deahl, from Newport, who spent more than a month working in Sierra Leone, would be one of about 2,000 people eligible for the accolade as outlined by Prime Minister David Cameron.
Speaking during Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, Mr Cameron said he would recommend to the award to the Queen as a mark of the "immense debt of gratitude" owed to NHS workers, the armed forces, civil servants and aid workers.
Dr Deahl spent Christmas in Sierra Leone working at the centre of the deadly outbreak as part of a first group of NHS volunteers to travel to the country. But he said it was "slightly embarrassing" for his actions to be considered worthy of a medal.
He said: "It is a great honour and it is wonderful to be recognised but really we were just doing our jobs and we are no better than any other healthcare worker anywhere else in the NHS.
"The people who really deserve the recognition and the medals are the families and work colleagues who minded the shop while we were away and went through a lot of hardship and difficulty to cope with our absence, they are the real heroes in this who did as much as we did in helping to control the epidemic.
"If I had a magic wand or could ask the Prime Minister a favour, I would say the first group that all went out there to Sierra Leone I would invite us all to a garden party at Buckingham Palace because it would be so lovely for us to all meet each other again. We are all over the country and any sort of reunion people might not be able to get to that but everyone would come to a garden party at Buckingham Palace in the summer.
"It is slightly embarrassing that people think of us as medal-worthy actually, I do not feel particularly brave at all. We had complete confidence in our training and the equipment and because of that we did not feel terribly frightened and if you are not frightened you are not brave.
"Looking back it was the professional experience of a lifetime. It was absolutely tragic and ghastly to see people dying in such terrible circumstances but there were positive moments as well and to see people recover who otherwise would have died was a joy to see."
"I would go back tomorrow if I was asked to."
