Tuesday, October 14, 2014

some of Nurses Union claims regarding Texas Hospital

Partial quote regarding Nurse Union Claims:
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.
end partial quote from:

Nurses slam Texas hospital for no Ebola plan | Health - WMUR Home

The problem with all this is other infections could occur because this was not a biocontainment unit of which there are only 4 in the U.S.

However, the other way to look at this is that this is the first hospital that wasn't a biocontainment unit that tried to respond to Ebola. Since it likely won't be the last one maybe what we are learning now is a good thing before all this gets much worse around the world. So, hopefully, all hospitals on earth can learn from what went wrong here. And hopefully Pham doesn't die like Duncan did.

Also, the obvious one that might have infected Pham would be the medical tape on the neck which would be almost impossible to remove without contaminating yourself.

 

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