The Hope Multipliers
Channel: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Date: 2015-07-13

Toward the end of 2014, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps was activated to respond to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Officers were pulled from across many different agencies within HHS and other components of the U.S. government.  Four 70-member teams were deployed to Liberia specifically to open and operate the Monrovia Medical Unit (MMU), a 25-bed healthcare facility to treat healthcare workers - either Liberian nationals or international volunteers with nongovernmental organizations - who became infected with the Ebola Virus Disease. President Obama called the PHS officers “Hope Multipliers” because just having that facility available offered volunteer healthcare workers the security of knowing that they would be treated in a Western facility with Western therapies, should they become infected. 

When the FDA TV Studio, located within the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), heard that eleven of their PHS colleagues had volunteered for this deployment, they decided to produce a short video to recognize and honor their colleagues.  Unfortunately, because of  work schedules and lack of funding, it wasn’t feasible to produce a video on all the courageous officers throughout the PHS who responded to the Ebola outbreak, but this video represents the outstanding work of each and every PHS volunteer who risked their lives to save others.