Military healthcare professionals experiences of ethical challenges whilst on Ebola humanitarian deployment

This is the first major, purely humanitarian military deployment since Rwanda (1994). It is known that civilian humanitarian healthcare workers experience complex ethical tensions when deployed as expatriates. Military healthcare workers face both related and different (uniquely military) challenges when deployed in conflict scenarios but it is not known how they will experience the novel ethical challenges and complexities in a purely humanitarian setting, dealing with a highly infectious disease in conditions of near disaster for the affected communities.

This project aims to collect interview data on the ethical challenges experienced by the deployed UK military healthcare personnel. It plans to recruit up to 25 nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals. An initial analysis of the resulting data will enable training materials to be developed quickly to benefit those, including civilians, about to deploy to Ebola-affected regions.

These materials will be evaluated by a subset of the participants and used to inform, train and support existing and future (military and civilian) deployments during the Ebola outbreak. The data collected will also be used in the longer term to expand and enrich existing understanding of the ethical experiences of expatriate healthcare workers volunteering for humanitarian work in other contexts, for instance working with non-governmental organisations or as part of governmental responses.

It is predicted that the UK medical military will increasingly be expected to contribute to similar humanitarian responses in the future. This work will also contribute to military preparation, training, support and policy in other humanitarian contexts.<br><br>Data record consists of an interview topic guide and a data list document, both in .docx format. The Data Collection only consists of metadata and documentation as the data could not be archived due to the data being owned by the Ministry of Defence.

The data has been deposited at the The Central Health Records Library Room 24, Sentinel House (Building B1), MOD Shoeburyness, Southend-on-Sea Essex, SS3 9SR, or, Building H5, DSDA H Site, Ploughley Road, Arncott, Bicester, OXON OX 25 2LD depending on whether the data was defined by the receiving officer as medical data or general data. The data will be archived for 10 years.