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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWho's in Charge of Ebola at Hospitals? 'Screaming That We're Not Prepared'
By Robert Langreth, Caroline Chen and Margaret Newkirk Oct 13, 2014 10:10 AM ET
Hospital staff need better training, more funding and sharper oversight to handle Ebola patients, nurses and doctors said after a caregiver in Dallas was confirmed to have caught the deadly virus.
The unidentified worker, who cared for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, was infected after a “breach in protocol,” said Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the first time someone has contracted Ebola inside U.S. borders.
Even as the CDC has hastened to reassure the public that the virus won’t spread in the U.S., the agency doesn’t monitor hospitals and has no authority to make sure they comply with official guidelines, according to Abbigail Tumpey, a CDC spokeswoman who is leading the education outreach to hospitals.
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It’s up to each hospital to enforce infection control, and standards vary depending on funding for infection experts and time devoted to training.
“We have been screaming for the past three months that hospitals are not prepared,” said Deborah Burger, co-president of National Nurses United, which represents 185,000 nurses across the country.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-12/ebola-control-training-lags-with-gap-in-federal-oversight.html
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KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)things are going to rapidly improve.
CYA mode doesn't help.
Viking12
(6,012 posts)And we need to take the politics out of funding for public health and research. We need to approve a strong Surgeon General like Dr. Vivek Murthy, and not have appointments like his be derailed by the NRA and their politicians. NIH’s budget was reduced by $446 million from 2010 to 2014, and subjected to inappropriate politically motivated interference in its decision making. The CDC’s discretionary funding was cut by $585 million during this same period. Shockingly, annual funding for the CDC’s public health preparedness and response efforts were $1 billion lower for 2013 fiscal year than for 2002. These funding decreases have resulted in more than 45,700 job losses at state and local health departments since 2008. Again, it is not just the Ebola that is a looming threat. We need to worry about vaccine-preventable but neglected infections like influenza, measles, and whooping cough; the serious emerging viral infections in the US like Enterovirus-D68, chikungunya and dengue, as well as overseas MERS and bird flus, and natural disasters.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/molecules-to-medicine/2014/10/06/ebola-in-the-u-s-politics-and-public-health-dont-mix/
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)don't look to the CDC for help.
Hospitals have to have been largely ignoring CDC guidelines in order to still be unprepared.
In red states, you can reasonably expect a majority of people to disregard anything and everything the federal government says and the CDC recommends.
Conservative policies and attitudes lead to failure of government services to do what they are intended to do. Just sayin'.
