Nurses Union: Our Nurses Worked On Duncan for Days Without the Proper Equipment

Let them eat reassuring cake.

The AP:

Nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments, worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for a patient with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting, said Deborah Burger of National Nurses United.

...

The nurses alleged that:

- Duncan was kept in a non-isolated area of the emergency department for several hours, potentially exposing up to seven other patients to Ebola;

- Patients who may have been exposed to Duncan were kept in isolation only for a day before being moved to areas where there were other patients;

- Nurses treating Duncan were also caring for other patients in the hospital;

- Preparation for Ebola at the hospital amounted to little more than an optional seminar for staff;

- In the face of constantly shifting guidelines, nurses were allowed to follow whichever ones they chose.

"There was no advance preparedness on what to do with the patient, there was no protocol, there was no system," Burger said.

They also allege that his specimens were sent through the pneumatic specimen-delivery tubes (that is, the hospital's pneumatic internal mail system), without apparent concern that this would expose the entire tube system to contamination, and hence expose anyone handling specimens.

In addition, they allege that Duncan's medical waste was allowed to pile up without being properly destroyed (burned?).

Thanks to @tmi3rd.

You know what I find reassuring? This deadly-glib nonsense:

Health-care worker Amber Vinson, who’d gone to Ohio to visit her mother, was not symptomatic when she boarded the return flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. But, Frieden said, Vinson did have a low-grade fever of 99.5 at the time. And because of her contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, Dallas’ initial Ebola patient, she should not have been traveling at all.

According to the Reassuring Doctor Frieden, she was not symptomatic when she was exhibiting symptoms.

Science, or Political PR?

The whole point of temperature screening is that a fever is an ebola symptom.

This women has ebola symptoms, and Doctor Bullshit tells you "Her symptoms were asymptomatic."

Clarification: Per Twitchy, it is being denied that nurses had "no" protective equipment (though my own post didn't say "no" protective equipment; it said "without proper equipment").

Early reporting by the Dallas Morning News along these lines has been corrected. The nurses didn't have what they'd call "proper" equipment, the story is, which would be hazmat suits and the like.

To be honest, I don't think this disputes the claims by the Nurses Union, but I'm including it anyway for context.

posted by Ace at 02:40 PM

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