Ebola - The New Pandemic - Coming to someplace near you soon?!

[Magda Hassan]

Another hospital worker in Dallas has ebola. So how will they spin it this time? We know they were in protective gear. A sneeze perhaps?

I just heard how that Dallas hospital handled this case - twice; they did worse than most Liberian health facilities. The first time he was given antibiotics and send home. On re-admission the patient first long sat in an emergency waiting room with other patients and staff. Then, he was finally moved to an isolation unit, but the nurses and others who were around him did NOT have anything NEAR sufficient protective clothing! [nor the training on how to use them, and how to treat an Ebola patient!]...and worst of all, they sent his lab specimens through the hospitals pneumatic tube system - infecting the entire system, other lab specimens, and lab technicians. That hospital will likely have to be partly closed and disinfected - and many who work there and/or were patients/visitors will come likely down with Ebola...sorry to say. Dallas is the new American epicenter of Ebola.....ironic fate. Now would be a good time to stop shaking hands around town and go on vacation......

Wasn't there a note written by a nurse in the electronic records system alerting to possibility of Ebola?

Yes, the nurse that attended the man the first time he self-admitted and said he had just returned from 'West Africa' suspected he MIGHT have Ebola and noted this in the computer - but NONE of the doctors that 'treated' him ever saw that computer entry - so he was just given antibiotics and sent home. This hospital has made MANY mistakes and will pay dearly for them, I'm afraid. When he returned in an ambulance the second time he stated he feared he had Ebola - and they put him in a waiting room for some hour.......

For-Profit Healthcare Under Fire As Ebola Spreads to Second US Healthcare Worker

CDC says Dallas healthcare worker took a flight from Cleveland to Dallas the day before reporting symptoms



by
Lauren McCauley, staff writer

As a second healthcare worker contracts Ebola in Texas, the privatized U.S. hospital system is facing increasing scrutiny. (Photo: CDC)

Update:
The Centers for Disease and Control announced Wednesday that the second Dallas healthcare worker infected with Ebola flew from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday, the day before Amber Vinson, 29, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was confirmed to have Ebola. Vinson had a temperature of 99.5 Fahrenheit before she boarded her flight. The CDC said they will interview all 132 passengers on the flight, Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth, which landed at 8:16 p.m. CT Monday.
Earlier:
A second healthcare worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who helped treat the late Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan has now tested positive for the virus, state health officials confirmed on Wednesday.
The unidentified worker reported having a fever on Tuesday and was immediately isolated. A preliminary Ebola test confirmed the presence of the disease and confirmatory testing is now being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, officials are in the process of interviewing the patient to identify individuals who may have had contact or potential exposure to the virus.
News of the infection comes four days after a nurse from Texas Health Presbyterian, identified as the 26-year-old Nina Pham, also tested positive for Ebola.
A growing number of health experts are drawing a line between this gross unpreparedness and the United States' for-profit healthcare system, under which there is minimal oversight and no uniformity between healthcare providers.The National Nurses Union for months has warned that poor hospital training and oversight is putting U.S. healthcare workers at great risk of contracting the virus. The NNU conducted a recent survey of healthcare workers across the country and found that 76 percent said their hospital had not yet communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola.
"What concerns me is that this validated what our systems say all over the country throughout the last two months, that hospitals are not prepared to take care of Ebola patients," Deborah Burger, co-president of NNU, told ABC News.
A growing number of health experts are drawing a line between this gross unpreparedness and the United States' for-profit healthcare system, under which there is minimal oversight and no uniformity between healthcare providers.
Speaking on Democracy Now! Wednesday morning, Dr. Lawrence Gostin, faculty director at the O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University, asked: "We call ourselves the most advanced health system in the world, but what do we meant by that?"
"I think what we mean is that we have the best of the best of the world," Gostin continued. "We also have a highly variable system: so many different hospitals, so many different emergency rooms, over 300 local health authorities with such different standards." Gostin said that the U.S. needs to "up our game," with more uniform systems in place, more uniform equipment and training at every institution.
The NNU is holding a national conference call Wednesday at 3 PM for a discussion about U.S. hospital preparedness. Over 1,000 nurses have already signed up for the call.
The World Health Organization on Tuesday warned that the number of cases of Ebola is growing exponentially as the global response continues to fall far short of what's needed to combat the spread of the deadly virus. WHO assistant director-general Dr. Bruce Aylward said that if efforts do not improve there could be as many as 10,000 new cases per week within two months within those hardest hit areas in West Africa. According to the WHO, over 4,400 people have now died of Ebolathe vast majority in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.