Our Ebola Treatment Centre is looking perfect for our handover from the Royal Engineers. It’s a hospital, built in seven weeks in the middle of the African jungle. We have a tour around our new home for snagging, a couple of short speeches and then its straight to work.

Except it’s not. One of the challenges of this multinational enterprise is that coordinating several different NGOs and several different national groups is complex. I start to have a deep sympathy for those working in the European Commission.

We have our first senior management meeting and discuss our plans. Already there are suggestions that we postpone the opening two days until the 17th, perhaps start training in three days’ time instead of tomorrow.

I control an urge to scream and negotiate a training start date in two days (WHY NOT TOMORROW!?) and a postponement of the opening one day, but I am going to have to heavily sedate my tendency towards impatience. Here we are at the epicentre of the world’s worst epidemic and our first senior management action is to announce a public holiday. A little less action a little more conversation.

The Norwegian team arrive in a flurry of excitement. It is good to be reunited with my Ebola warriors from my army medical training in York. The Norwegian military have delivered their side of the bargain by bringing glamping to Sierra Leone with their very impressive base camp.

Five large eight-man tents with air conditioning (!), washing and drying machines (!!), hot showers (!!!), air-conditioned toilet cubicles (!!!!) and a kitchen tent with five chefs (!!!!!).

This being international aid, not a single penny has been spent in country and everything has been flown in at vast expense from Norway. Even the bottled water, which is a melted iceberg of some sort.

Sadly the most basic of human needs, internet access, has been overlooked, so we prowl like hyenas around the town, searching for scraps of bandwidth.

One of my key roles is to link the Ebola hospital with the local health services and community, so I decline the St Ebola public holiday and visit the local NGOs we will be working with.

Action Control le Faim is a community-based NGO with a long track record in the area and will be working with us to support Ebola survivors (if we ever open to have any). All patients have all their possessions burnt as part of the decontamination, so aid packages are offered for a mattress and some clothes.

ACF will also be running some of the Ebola ambulances and a network of motorcycle riders who can help contact tracing and follow up support. Most importantly they have internet, so I luxuriate in the long rambling meeting while my laptop sucks in emails.

Then to World Vision, who will be our partners for those patients who do not survive. They have been running the district safe burial programme for the last few months, and after hearing about the unmarked graves in Bo I am reassured to hear about their approach of respect and compassion. Mr Bundu the burial lead tells me that his team have buried 250 Ebola cases in the last month - every one with a grave marker.

This is dangerous and unpopular work, but crucial to the containment of the epidemic. We agree a plan for how we are going to work together to bury our patients who do not survive (if we ever open to have any).

Finally to the Command and Control meeting to hear about the days latest alerts and confirmed cases. The Sierra Leonean army major in charge welcomes me and I explain how we have been visiting other Ebola hospitals to learn how we can provide the best care for our patients in Moyamba.

The audience is enthusiastic until they discover I am also working in the Ebola centre, upon which I am informed that the army has strict rules about Ebola segregation, and I will not be allowed to attend future Command and Control meetings.

I use science and reason as my allies, but they have UK military advice for their defence, so until I can persuade someone in the command, I am in the farcical situation of being the medical lead for liaison with Command and Control, but barred from their meetings. Maybe I should attend wearing full PPE.

MORE BLOG POSTS FROM PROFESSOR JOHN WRIGHT