Monrovia , Liberia ( CNN ) -- About 10 days ago , Lusa Khanneh took ill , but not with Ebola . Her son , Saymon Kamara , says his mother was having violent convulsions . Those are n't a typical symptom of Ebola ; they 're a complication of high blood pressure , which Kanneh had suffered from for years . Kamara drove his mother to Redemption Hospital , near their home in the West Point slums of Monrovia . Doctors had given her treatment there before , and he hoped to get it again . But Redemption , like so many hospitals in Liberia , is closed or partially closed out of fear that Ebola patients will infect health care workers . It 's a fear based in reality : In Liberia , more than 170 health care workers have contracted the disease and 83 have died of it . Next , Kamara drove to ELWA Hospital , but learned it only takes Ebola patients . Then he drove his mother to JFK Hospital , but it was overwhelmed and accepting only pregnant women , children and Ebola patients . Cooper Hospital was his last chance . Kamara and his mother waited outside . By now she was convulsing every 15 minutes , `` as if someone had put a spell on her , '' he says . Her breathing was rapid and shallow . A doctor came out -- a tall man , Kamara remembers . He pointed to a small blood stain on his mother 's shirt . He wanted to know what it was from . Kamara explained that during one of her seizures his mother had bit her tongue and bled a little . But he could tell the doctor was worried she had Ebola , because bleeding is one of the symptoms . He turned Kanneh away . Lusa Khanneh had run out of options . The only place her son could take her was home . Four days later , on September 19 , she died . Saymon Kamara is angry . `` If the hospitals were open , she would n't have died , '' he says . `` This was n't her time to go . '' No contact : Life inside the Ebola outbreak . There 's no question that countless Liberians are dying because of Ebola even when they do n't have it . There are few functioning hospitals or doctors ' offices . Health care services , weak before Ebola , barely exist ; vaccination rates , for example , have plummeted . `` The primary care system here is basically shattered , '' says Sarah Crowe , a spokeswoman for UNICEF who is working in Liberia . `` It 's an outrage that children are dying of diseases , like measles , that are preventable and treatable . '' Even after death , Ebola -- a disease her son says she never had -- haunted Kanneh . Her family heard on the radio that no one should touch a cadaver , no matter what the cause of death . Call in , the announcer on the radio said , and a team from Dead Body Management will come for the body . It 's simply impractical to test every cadaver for Ebola and sort out who died of what before burial . It would dangerously delay the burial to do so , and would take up too many resources . So the Kanneh family did as they were instructed . On Saturday , the day after her death , a team of five men in white suits , covered head to toe , sprayed Lusa Khanneh 's body with chlorine and buried her . Kanneh did n't receive the burial she would have wanted as a devout Muslim . Her family did n't wash her body . They did n't carry her to the mosque and pray over her . They did n't bury her themselves . `` These guys who buried her -- I do n't know these guys , '' Kamara says , referring to the men in the white suits with the chlorine spray . `` I expected my family to bury her , but now strangers have buried her . '' But he says he understands . `` I have to accept this because this is the kind of country I live in and the kind of country my mother died in , '' he says . `` I have to accept it with a heavy heart . '' CNN 's John Bonifield , Orlando Ruiz , and Orlind Cooper contributed to this story .
Liberians with other ailments trapped by Ebola crisis . Hospitals are too busy fighting Ebola or closed because of fears of it . Comment: