CDC admits protocols for hospitals were too lax and finally changes them.

[pnwmom]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/10/16/hospital-staffs-improperly-trained-ebola-experts-say/XbUiTl2O4Ms8KK1JzhoRRJ/story.html

Federal health officials effectively acknowledged the problems with their procedures for protecting health care workers by abruptly changing them. At 8 p.m. Tuesday evening, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued stricter guidelines for US hospitals with Ebola patients.


They are now closer to the procedures of Doctors Without Borders, which has decades of experience in fighting Ebola in Africa. In issuing the new guidelines, the CDC acknowledged that its experts had learned by working alongside that medical charity, which goes by its French initials, MSF.

The agency’s new voluntary guidelines include full-body suits covering the head and neck; supervision of the risky process of taking off protective gear; and the use of hand disinfectant as each item is removed.

Sean G. Kaufman, who oversaw infection control at Emory University Hospital while it treated Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the first two US Ebola victims, called the earlier CDC guidelines “absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong.”

SNIP

[The empressof all]

1. It is up to the states to enforce compliance with guidelines

It appears to me that the State of Texas dropped the ball here on assuring that basic infectious disease controls in place at the time were even followed in this first case at Presbyterian Hospital.

Seriously....I am not a medical professional but releasing anyone with a 103 degree fever seems highly suspect to me let alone someone who had recently traveled to any tropical or third world country.

[uppityperson]

2. Now for states and individual facilities doing what they need to do to keep health care workers safe

[kestrel91316]

3. It's not CDC's fault that people refuse to or are too stupid to follow guidelines.

Texas hospitals ignore CDC guidelines and will ignore these new ones, too.

No Ebola patients should ever be cared for in a Texas hospital again.

[pnwmom]

6. No, but the CDC acknowledges their protocols were insufficient AS WRITTEN. n/t

[kestrel91316]

8. Irrelevant. They were thrown in the circular file, essentially if not in fact.

[pnwmom]

10. It is very relevant to everything that happens from now on.

It is relevant to any hospital that might find an Ebola patient in its waiting room going forward.

[KittyWampus]

4. VOLUNTARY>>> They are and were voluntary. It's up to States to ensure standards exist

and are enforced. Or not, as in the case of Republican hell-holes like Texas.

[Tatiana]

5. Voluntary? They should be compelled to comply!

Federal funds should be made available to all non-profit hospitals lacking full protective body suits.

As a matter of fact, let's just phone our Nigerian friends and see if they can help us develop proper, mandatory protocols to be followed by all hospitals.

Kudos to Emory hospital, though. They seem to have great administrators and competent, well-trained personnel.

[pnwmom]

7. But even Emory has acknowledged they ran into all sorts of problems

they hadn't anticipated. For example, no one wanted to collect their hazardous waste.

[kestrel91316]

9. Texass got millions of dollars from CDC last year for public health and preparedness purposes.

A lot of good it did: no training, no equipment, no binders full of written guidelines, even.