Better Ebola response may have prevented nurse's case, CDC head says

[pnwmom]

Source: ABC News

The nation's top health official said today he regrets not sending a larger team of experts to Texas when the first case of Ebola was diagnosed, a move he said may have prevented a Dallas nurse from getting infected.

President Obama said today that his administration is “surging resources into Dallas” to examine how nurse Nina Pham contracted Ebola while helping to care for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, and ensure “all lessons learned” will be applied across the country.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that from now on a "CDC Ebola response team" will be ready to reach a hospital "within hours" of a reported case of Ebola.

"I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed. That might have prevented infection," Frieden said at a news conference today. "We will do that from today onward with any case in the U.S."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ebola-response-prevented-nurses-case-cdc-head/story?id=26195521

[kestrel91316]

1. CDC expected the Texas hospital to be minimally competent at RUNNING A HOSPITAL,

which always includes running an infectious diseases/isolation ward.

Instead, that particular hospital, at least, turns out to have been run by negligent, lazy buffoons who can't bother to train staff adequately and make sure that staff are AWARE OF PROPER PROTOCOLS.

It's Texas. Frieden should have expected the worst.

[Little Star]

2. What you said.

[candelista]

13. Only 4 places in the US are equipped to handle Ebola.

The Texas hospital here Duncan was treated is not one of them. When Duncan's family called the CDC, the CDC responded by telling the hospital to readmit him! Now the CDC admits that they should have sent a CDC team right away.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/15/health/texas-ebola-outbreak/index.html

[Little Star]

14. Exactly

[TheVisitor]

3. it's Texas...

They're too worried about their guns getting taken away and ISIS coming over the Mexico border... Next thing they will do is start accusing people of crossing the border of being infected with Ebola just to scare more people..

[kestrel91316]

4. Any day now. Just watch.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

6. You just spread a bunch of bullshit

Last edited Tue Oct 14, 2014, 10:52 PM - Edit history (2)

with those broad brush strokes.

And the CDC is admitting their protocols were wrong.

Furthermore, spokeswomen for the nurses' union are on tv everyday begging for more training, because most nurses DO NOT deal with such deadly infectious disease, and rarely ever suit up. The most infectious thing they usually deal with are influenza and the rare case of tuberculosis. The union has been polling nurses all across the country, and the majority of nurses do not feel prepared for ebola. It's not just Texas.

Surgical staff are accustomed to suiting up, but I can assure you that most don't take the level of care removing their "PPE" that is required for ebola, since the purpose of the gloves, gown, foot covers, etc. are worn "mostly" for the patient's protection. Most surgical staff just yank off the protective clothing as they exit the operating room.

[SkyDaddy7]

7. The CDC DID NOT admit their protocols are wrong! STOP LYING!!!

This was a failure of the hospital to train the nurses on how to implement the CDC protocols!!

STOP being so BLINDED by your defense of "unions" & THINK...CDC protocols have been developed over many decades & the CDC works with far more infectious diseases that Ebola on DAILY BASIS & no one is infected!

No one at Emory in Atlanta was infected & they cared for TWO patients...No one in Boston or the European hospitals ALL of which use the same CDC protocols!!

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

8. EMORY HOSPITAL Ebola Patients WERE TREATED IN A BIO LEVEL 4 HAZARD UNIT

JUST LIKE IN NEBRASKA!

THE ENVIRONMENT, EQUIPMENT, AND TRAINING IN THOSE UNITS IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD - IN FACT, IT IS WORLDS APART FROM other hospitals.

DO YOU GET THAT?

[SkyDaddy7]

9. So what? CDC Protocol WAS NOT FOLLWED in Texas, period!

Are you reading Breitbart.com? Sure sounds like it.

Blame the federal government & especially the scientist because they damn sure don't know what they are doing!

The hospital was not prepared & did not properly train its staff how to implement CDC protocols but that does not mean CDC protocol is flawed...HUGE DIFFERENCE!!!

Even in Africa where they are working in far less favorable conditions & don't have the means to implement all of the CDC protocols most care takers are not getting infected...There is no reason why a hospital in America with the proper training can't prevent the spread of Ebola...Nigeria is doing a wonderful job!!

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

10. I DO NOT get my information from Breitbart.

I watch CNN and MSNBC, but mostly CNN.

I occasionally scan the Houston Chronicle and the Washington Post. In fact, the Chronicle is delivered to my door.

[City Lights]

11. The CDC did change their protocols...

CDC changes Ebola care guidelines for U.S. hospitals after Dallas case

Ebola care instructions at a Dallas hospital and across the country were changed by federal officials on Monday — a tacit admission that training and procedures used for America’s first case of the disease had come up short.

The changes were prompted by the discovery that a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas had become infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola in the hospital last Wednesday.

The transmission of the deadly virus to the nurse “doesn’t change the fact that it’s possible to take care of Ebola safely. But it does change substantially how we approach it,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control, because even a single infection is unacceptable.”

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20141013-cdc-changes-ebola-care-guidelines-for-hospitals.ece

[SkyDaddy7]

15. That article is misleading...

It is a Dallas paper & I am not sure its political leanings but regardless...The article starts, "Ebola care instructions at a Dallas hospital and across the country were changed by federal officials on Monday — a tacit admission that training and procedures used for America’s first case of the disease had come up short."

However, they NEVER mention what those "training & procedures" are? WHY NOT? Because the CDC is NOT changing their protocol on how to remain safe from the diseases during care but rather how to implement the training needed because the hospital failed miserably!!

This article explains in great detail just how ridiculously careless the hospital was in handling the original patient...It will be amazing if there are not dozens more infected! All the CDC is doing different is sending experts to the hospital to ensure staff is properly trained on how to care for Ebola patients not that their previous methods were wrong. HUGE DIFFERENCE!!

It is not as if the CDC misjudged how the virus spreads & gave the wrong instructions on how to care for patients like others here want to believe.

This is NOT CDC protocol...
(From the article below)
"In Dallas, nurses assigned to care for Duncan, who died last week, weren't given proper training or proper personal protective equipment, said Deborah Burger, copresident of the nursing group, who said she has spoken to nurses at Texas Presbyterian. These nurses also assigned to care for other patient, potentially exposing them to Ebola. Duncan was left in an area with other patients for hours after he was diagnosed, rather that immediately isolated, she said.

Blood samples taken from Duncan were sent through the hospital's general tube delivery system, rather than hand-delivered to a lab, Burger quoted the nurses as saying. That could potentially contaminated the entire tube system, which could infect blood shipped around the hospital.

The hospital failed to promptly remove waste contaminated with Ebola, which was stacked "to the ceilings," Burger said."

-----SNIP----

"In the future, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will send "go teams" of Ebola experts to any hospital with an Ebola case, within hours of the diagnosis, according to Thomas Frieden, the agency's director.

Frieden said CDC staff observed some problems at the Dallas hospital.
"Some healthcare workers were putting on three or four layers of personal protective equipment," or PPE, Frieden said. "Other things were done such as taping part of the gear in the belief that this would be more protective."

While workers were operating in good faith, Frieden said that, "by putting on more layers of gloves and other layers of clothing, it becomes much harder to put them and much harder to take them off. So the risk of contamination gets much higher."

Using a routine procedure helps reduce the risk of infection, Frieden said. "Healthcare workers who are using familiar PPEs in familiar ways are more likely to do it right," he said."

Very good article!


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/15/nurses-protest-ebola/17302987/

[City Lights]

17. Here's a NYTimes article saying CDC changed their guidelines:

Lax U.S. Guidelines on Ebola Led to Poor Hospital Training, Experts Say

Many American hospitals have improperly trained their staffs to deal with Ebola patients because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax, infection control experts said on Wednesday.

Federal health officials effectively acknowledged the problems with their procedures for protecting health care workers by abruptly changing them. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued stricter guidelines for American 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 C.D.C. acknowledged that its experts had learned by working alongside that medical charity.

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 American Ebola patients, called the earlier C.D.C. guidelines “absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/lax-us-guidelines-on-ebola-led-to-poor-hospital-training-experts-say.html?_r=0

I think there is plenty of blame to go around. Texas Presbyterian was sloppy and inept in training their staff, but the CDC did indeed change their protocols for dealing with this, so those who made that claim in this thread are most certainly not lying as you have claimed.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Texas Momma appears to be correct:

"Texas Ebola Cases Prompt CDC to Adopt Stricter Guidelines"

The spread of Ebola in a Texas hospital is exposing inadequate protection measures for nurses and doctors, spurring U.S. officials to adopt more stringent guidelines. The new advice still falls short of what the aid group with the most Ebola experience advises.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday disclosed measures designed to better protect health workers that more closely resemble protocol used by Doctors Without Borders on the frontlines of the outbreak in West Africa. Workers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas must now wear hoods that cover their necks and wash their hands in a specific sequence when they remove protective gear, the CDC said in a statement....

...The aid group Doctors Without Borders has always required gear that doesn’t expose any area of skin as well as hand-washing in between removal of each item of protective equipment for workers dealing with Ebola patients.

Even with the recent revisions, the CDC guidelines aren’t stringent enough, according to MacIntyre.

The updated advice suggests the second glove can be removed by hooking a bare finger under it, risking contact with a potentially contaminated surface, and doesn’t mention protective boots at all, she said. Doctors Without Borders requires two pairs of gloves, while the CDC only mentions one.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-15/texas-ebola-cases-prompt-cdc-to-adopt-stricter-guidelines.html

[LisaL]

16. Then CDC was very, very wrong, weren't they?

[Dopers_Greed]

5. Profit-based system

All hospitals are probably staffed to the absolute minimum. Properly equipping for ebola means more overhead. More overhead = less profit.