Naturally the CDC and the Fed doesn't want to start a wide spread panic......but then I wonder if they had thought about the MS media. What do you think about this info and what Nurses are saying? I think they are on the money and people cannot take this matter lightly. What say ye?
CHICAGO (Reuters) -
Nurses, the frontline care providers in U.S. hospitals, say they are untrained and unprepared to handle patients arriving in their hospital emergency departments infected with Ebola. Many say they have gone to hospital managers, seeking training on how to best care for patients
and protect themselves and their families from contracting the deadly disease, which has so far killed at least 3,338 people in the deadliest outbreak on record. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly said that U.S. hospitals are prepared to handle such patients. Many infectious disease experts agree with that assessment.
"The Texas case is a perfect example," said Micker Samios, a triage nurse in the emergency department at Medstar Washington Hospital Center, the largest hospital in the nation's capital. "
In addition to not being prepared, there was a flaw in diagnostics as well as communication," Samios said. Nurses argue that inadequate preparation could increase the chances of spreading Ebola if hospital staff fail to recognize a patient coming through their doors, or if personnel are not informed about how to properly protect themselves. "
When an Ebola patient is admitted or goes to the intensive care unit, those nurses, those tech service associates are not trained," she said. "
The X-ray tech who comes into the room to do the portable chest X-ray is not trained. The transporter who pushes the stretcher is not trained." If an Ebola patient becomes sick while being transported, "How do you clean the elevator?"
A survey by National Nurses United of some 400 nurses in more than 200 hospitals in 25 states found that more than half (60 percent) said their hospital is not prepared to handle patients with Ebola, and more than 80 percent said their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola.
Another 30 percent said their hospital has insufficient supplies of eye protection and fluid-resistant gowns.....snip~
U.S. nurses say they are unprepared to handle Ebola patients
