Aspen Medical has a secured a $20million deal with the federal government to run a 100-bed British-built facility in Sierra Leone until mid-2015.

The men behind the Canberra-based company – Glenn Keys and Andrew Walker – grew up at Redhead and attended Whitebridge High School.

Mr Keys said at least 350 Australians had registered online to be involved in the hospital and a further 100 applications had come from Africa. He said up to one in five of the 240 staff at the hospital could be Australian.

It’s expected the staff will undergo several days of training, then work for three to four weeks in the hospital before entering a three-week quarantine process and returning home.

‘‘I think there’s going to be quite a number of Australians employed,’’ Mr Keys said. ‘‘They’ll come back with a lot of great experiences that we could use, not only here, but in future crises in the region.’’

Labor leader Bill Shorten said the volunteers had been available for some time.

‘‘The government has sat on its hands,’’ Mr Shorten said. ‘‘If we don’t deal with it now we will deal with it later with greater repercussions.’’

The government argued that until this week it did not have an assurance from a third country that the health workers would receive appropriate treatment and evacuation if they contracted the virus.

Mr Keys said it would have been difficult to act sooner.

‘‘I would have been concerned for my staff and any volunteers we had, if we didn’t have the methodology to treat them,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t think that’s an unrealistic requirement.’’

Federal secretary of the Nursing and Midwifery Association Lee Thomas said it was impossible for locally hired health workers to cope with the crisis.

‘‘Whilst it’s important to train local people, the relief effort in west Africa must be supported by Australian and other healthcare workers from around the world. That’s the only way they are going to cope,’’ she said.

Groups such as Oxfam Australia and the Public Health Association are calling for the military to be deployed.

The World Health Organisation has reported the Ebola death toll stood at a revised figure of 4818, with just more than 13,000 reported cases.