Claim: Duncan wasn't immediately isolated
On the day that Duncan was admitted to the hospital with possible Ebola symptoms, he was "left for several hours, not in isolation, in an area where other patients were present," union co-president Deborah Burger said.
Claim: The nurses' protective gear left their necks exposed
After expressing concerns that their necks were exposed even as they wore protective gear, the nurses were told to wrap their necks with medical tape, the union says.
"They were told to use medical tape and had to use four to five pieces of medical tape wound around their neck. The nurses have expressed a lot of concern about how difficult it is to remove the tape from their neck," Burger said.
Claim: At one point, hazardous waste piled up
"There was no one to pick up hazardous waste as it piled to the ceiling," Burger said. "They did not have access to proper supplies."
Claim: Nurses got no "hands-on" training
"There was no mandate for nurses to attend training," Burger said, though they did receive an e-mail about a hospital seminar on Ebola.
"This was treated like hundreds of other seminars that were routinely offered to staff," she said.
Claim: The nurses "feel unsupported"
So why did the group of nurses -- the union wouldn't say how many -- contact the nursing union, which they don't belong to?
According to DeMoro, the nurses were upset after authorities appeared to blame nurse Pham, who has contracted Ebola, for not following protocols.
"This nurse was being blamed for not following protocols that did not exist. ... The nurses in that hospital were very angry, and they decided to contact us," DeMoro said.
And they're worried conditions at the hospital "may lead to infection of other nurses and patients," Burger said.
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