Nurses to CDC: Wrong. US Hospitals Not Prepared for Ebola
"87 percent say their hospital has not provided education on Ebola
The Center for Disease Control and the Obama Administration's Department of Homeland Security rushed Friday to assure the US public that our hospitals are fully prepared for any possible outbreak of Ebola.
The National Nurses United disagree. They say US hospitals "are not ready to confront this deadly disease."
In a release Saturday morning, National Nurses United is stepping up the call on U.S. hospitals to immediately upgrade emergency preparations for Ebola in the U.S.
Several weeks ago, National Nurses United began surveying registered nurses across the U.S. about emergency preparedness. Most of the nurses are telling NNU that their hospital is not prepared for the Ebola virus.
In updated preliminary results from nearly 700 RNs at over 250 hospitals in 31 states released Friday:
80 percent say their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola
87 percent say their hospital has not provided education on Ebola with the ability for the nurses to interact and ask questions
One-third say their hospital has insufficient supplies of eye protection (face shields or side shields with goggles) and fluid resistant/impermeable gowns
Nearly 40 percent say their hospital does not have plans to equip isolation rooms with plastic covered mattresses and pillows and discard all linens after use, less than 10 percent said they were aware their hospital does have such a plan in place
More than 60 percent say their hospital fails to reduce the number of patients they must care for to accommodate caring for an isolation patient
<SNIP>
"What our surveys show is a reminder that we do not have a national health care system, but a fragmented collection of private healthcare companies each with their own way of responding, Castillo said."
THIS^^^
More...
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/04/nurses-cdc-wrong-us-hospitals-not-prepared-ebola
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)adirondacker
(2,921 posts)on full display with this "pandemic".
Pathetic.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)And it makes one wonder where all the insane amounts of money goes, because from my many visits to hospitals with a sick relative, it wasn't going on staffing, nutrition, or equipment. It was going on lobbies with chandeliers and koi ponds. It was going to maternity wards that had jacuzzis and masseuses. And I'm sure it's going into more than a few pockets. I have about as much faith that hospitals will take precautions as Walmart is going to double minimum wage. It's not going to happen until they are forced to.
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)It's a SCAM and the taxpayers are paying the cost with little to no accountability.
Laffy Kat
(16,331 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Hekate
(89,976 posts)Kablooie
(18,547 posts)what the CDC really meant was that they were prepared to prepare the medical industry for Ebola. That is they know what they want to say but have only trained a small proportion of the country.
The real cancre is that the Dallas hospital is one they HAD trained, and recently.
Looks like they need some training as to how to train staffs.
PADemD
(4,482 posts)Are our hospitals (especially in rural areas) prepared with Isolation Units for multiple (50+) patients?
Also reported by Reuters:
U.S. nurses say they are unprepared to handle Ebola patients
Samios said she and other members of the emergency department staff were trained just last week on procedures to care for and recognize an Ebola patient, but not everyone was present for the training, and none of the other nursing or support staff were trained.
"When an Ebola patient is admitted or goes to the intensive care unit, those nurses, those tech service associates are not trained," she said. "The X-ray tech who comes into the room to do the portable chest X-ray is not trained. The transporter who pushes the stretcher is not trained."
If an Ebola patient becomes sick while being transported, "How do you clean the elevator?"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/03/health-ebola-nurses-idUSL2N0RX35F20141003
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... had conducted. Answer: "None."
eilen
(4,950 posts)it's course before they approve a policy and procedure.-- Unless of course the DOH comes and dings them requiring a plan of correction within 48 hours.
elias7
(3,974 posts)All hospitals have been prepared for this type of thing ever since 9/11 and the anthrax scare. There are protocols in place for Bio-Chem-Nuclear warfare, which in fact does include hemorrhagic viruses. And there protocols in place for setting up command centers to effectively triage patients, allocate resources and know when a hospital's resources are overwhelmed. It is really is a regional not a local response. And hospitals can mobilize quickly to respond to such a threat.
It is difficult to stock certain things that have limited shelf life or limited utility in a practical sense. The key is to be able to get resources where they are needed quickly, and I don't know how many of the respondents have sat in on meetings to deal with these very things. The point is, hospitals are a bit more prepared than the perceptions people have.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)There may be protocols,but who knows what they are in an emergency, given the rate of staff turnover in some areas.
elias7
(3,974 posts)For example, in the few mass casualty episodes our hospital has gone through in the past 7 years, the disaster protocols are used and reinforce the automaticity of a newer skill/process.
There has been turnover, and these "mass casualty affairs" pale in comparison to what one would normally think about when hearing the term. And I don't know how well stockpiled we are for any one specific event, but probably not well.
But, I would expect (perhaps wrongly) that our administration has its own protocols in place to the quickly mobilize equipment based on the type of casualty...
Consider how well orchestrated was the response to the boston marathon bombing. The central command structure was able to triage in the field, utilize the numerous hospitals and their resources in a balanced way.
Our response to enterovirus 68 has been organized and appropriate.
eilen
(4,950 posts)We are just now converting to all private rooms and that renovation won't be completed for at least 5 years to be hospital wide. They do not accommodate staffing by acuity, it is always by census.
Triana
(22,666 posts)... to the rest of the medical team that the patient in question has been in Liberia caring for sick people there. And she was told by the people who first brought him there - they were (they said) making sure they mentioned it. And then what? He got sent home with antibiotics.
This does NOT give me much confidence that US hospitals/nurses are prepared. Absolutely not. They seem absolutely oblivious, instead.
eilen
(4,950 posts)Emergency rooms are generally geared for trauma, stroke and heart attacks.
Triana
(22,666 posts)...that's what they told him to say. It seems there was something specific he had to tell them to get an ambulance to take him back to the hospital.
Edit: following through w/ that thought though, are hospitals, doctors, nurses unaware of what's going on in those regions - unaware of ebola? So much that when someone arrives showing symptoms and it was made clear that the person recently traveled from such an area where there were people sick with it, they don't bother to communicate that to the medical team and take proper precautions?
Maybe it's expecting too much.
pnwmom
(108,914 posts)travel to Western Africa means a risk for Ebola. Especially staff in the ER.
CrispyQ
(36,112 posts)avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)I think many if not most hospitals are sloppy about detecting and treating some of these diseases.