Australia to help staff Ebola clinic November 5, 2014 - 3:14PM The federal government will spend $20 million to help staff an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone. Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the government will hire a medical services firm, allowing more Australian doctors and nurses to join the global effort. The mission follows a deal struck between the governments of Australia and the UK and healthcare provider Aspen Medical to manage services in a 100-bed British military field hospital in Sierra Leone. If Australian health workers get the virus they will be guaranteed treatment as if they were British. Australia has provided $18 million in aid, but the only Australian workers in west Africa are volunteers working with non-government organisations. Mr Abbott said $2 million would also be devoted to enhancing regional preparedness for Ebola, by providing training for countries such as East Timor and Papua New Guinea. A further $2 million will go to Australian logisticians working with UN agencies such as the World Health Organisation in West Africa. Mr Abbott expects Aspen to have staff on the ground in Sierra Leone within days and hopes the medical centre will be running by the end of November. Australia is also ramping up its domestic preparedness including extra screening at airports of people arriving from west Africa. "The last thing anyone would want to do is have personnel going to Africa, coming back to Australia and acting as carriers for this horrible disease," Mr Abbott said. More than half the health workers who have contracted Ebola so far have died. MORE to come