Ebola strikes second Dallas health care worker

[BillB]

A second health care worker who cared for Thomas Duncan has tested positive for Ebola.


http://www.cnbc.com/id/102078869

[ann jusko]

I'm so disgusted with the CDC.

[planosteve]

More breaking news:
DALLAS — Nurses at the Dallas hospital where a Liberian man died of Ebola described a confused and chaotic response to his arrival in the emergency room, alleging in a statement Tuesday that he languished for hours in a room with other patients and that hospital authorities resisted isolating him.

In addition, they said, the nurses tending him had flimsy protective gear and no proper training from hospital administrators.

The allegations, made under unusual circumstances, provided the first detailed portrait of Thomas Eric Duncan’s second trip to the emergency room, where he arrived by ambulance days after doctors had sent him home with a fever, a headache, abdominal pain and a prescription for antibiotics.

Tuesday’s claims came during a conference call with reporters in which none of the nurses from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital spoke or was identified to reporters. A statement outlining a litany of damning assertions was read by Deborah Burger, co-president of National Nurses United. The Oakland group does not represent the Dallas nurses, who are nonunionized, but has been vocal about what it says are hospitals’ failures to prepare for Ebola.

The Dallas nurses asked National Nurses United to read their statement so they could air complaints anonymously and without fear of losing their jobs, National Nurses United executive director RoseAnn DeMoro said from Oakland, Calif. DeMoro refused to say how many nurses signed off on the letter or how many were on the media call, but she said all of them worked at Presbyterian and had been involved in Duncan’s care or had direct knowledge of what had occurred after he arrived by ambulance.

They were spurred to speak out after their colleague, registered nurse Nina Pham, 26, contracted Ebola while treating Duncan, according to DeMoro. She said the nurses were angered over what they perceived to be health officials’ suggestions that Pham made a mistake that led to her exposure to the virus, which has killed more than 4,400 people in West Africa since March.

The statement alleged that when Duncan was brought to Presbyterian by ambulance Sept. 28 with Ebola-like symptoms, he was “left for several hours, not in isolation, in an area” where up to seven other patients were. “Subsequently, a nurse supervisor arrived and demanded that he be moved to an isolation unit, yet faced stiff resistance from other hospital authorities,” they alleged.

Duncan’s lab samples were sent through the usual hospital tube system “without being specifically sealed and hand delivered. The result is that the entire tube system … was potentially contaminated,” they said.

The statement described a hospital with no clear rules on how to handle Ebola patients, despite months of alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta about the possibility of Ebola coming to the United States.

“There was no advanced preparedness on what to do with the patient. There was no protocol. There was no system. The nurses were asked to call the infectious disease department” if they had questions, but that department didn’t have answers either, the statement said. So nurses were essentially left to figure things out on their own as they dealt with “copious amounts” of highly contagious bodily fluids from the dying Duncan while wearing gloves with no wrist tapes, flimsy gowns that did not cover their necks, and no surgical booties, it alleged.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20141015-in-statement-nurses-at-presbyterian-dallas-describe-confused-response-to-ebola-case.ece

[glenn/dallas]

I know its near us and I know its a crisis, or a potential one anyway, but since 5am this morning 95% of the local news has been about the new ebola patient and everything you ever wanted to know about where she lives, what they are doing to clean up the residence....actually, exactly what we just went through a day or two ago. Isnt there something else going on ?

I am going to be forced to put in my Shawshank Redemption tape soon.

[GFB]

Either the "word" on how a person catches Ebola is completely wrong..or more than one person had sex with Duncan at the hospital.

[kent]

The guy in the next cube over lives near this one.

[PlanoSooner]

the government will save us

[LibraryLady]

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/one-texas-ebola-patient-will-be-sent-emory-n226551

[scarlett~nc]

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/one-texas-ebola-patient-will-be-sent-emory-n226551

If it was me, I'd want to be sent to Emory or one of the few hospitals "so called ready" for Ebola patients ..one now being Wake Forest Baptist in Winston Salem, N C. .where I worked for many years

[BillB]

She flew with a fever.
Why aren't these people under quarantine?

[planosteve]

She flew with a fever.
Why aren't these people under quarantine?

She asked and got permission from the CDC to fly because her temperature was slightly below the cut off.

[BillB]

So the CDC gave her permission to fly and now are monitoring all the passengers she flew with as well as grounding the plane?
I think there is an idiot in the woodpile, somewhere.

[planosteve]

Dallas will declare this a disaster later today which will give them authority to further restrict travel.