As It Fights Ebola, Presbyterian Sends Medical Students and Non-Essential Workers Home
As Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital becomes the epicenter of the American Ebola scare, Texas Woman's University announced yesterday that all "non-essential personnel" had been suspended until further notice from the East Dallas hospital. The university referred specifically to the 90 TWU students this decision would effect, but the announcement of the closure touches on just one more way hospital business has taken a hit in the last two weeks.
While the hospital declined to comment on what exactly the removal of these workers entails, the move can be likened to the emergency preparedness plans which remove non-essential personnel from the hospital in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. Not only does the move indicate the hospital's level of concern for further spread within the hospital, the potential for spread is now considered an emergency.
Dr. Forney Fleming, Director of the Healthcare Management Program at UT Dallas, says essential workers who remain at the hospital likely includes anyone involved in direct patient care. "There's a large number of workers who would fall into the non-essential category. So for example there's the IT department, the HR department, the quality improvement department, the students," he says. "Probably they want to take out as many bodies there as they possibly can until they determine how this young lady contracted the virus."
It's the big unknown that clearly has administration at the nonprofit hospital so scared that they're willing to incur revenue losses. And Fleming says in just the two weeks since Duncan fell ill, these losses are likely substantial.
Read more: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/10/presbyterian_hospital_business_suffers_after_enacting_emergency_preparedness_measures.php