and doing that without increasing exposure is not an easy task.

But it has been suggested as an alternative to treating the patients in regular hospitals (because that certainly hasn't been a great success thus far).

We don't have a good system for that. It's better not to transport and to use the very best isolation methods available where the patient is. Isolation and separation is the best way to prevent outbreaks from occurring. There's still a risk for health care workers, but that risk will be increased the more people are involved in contact with people with symptoms.

Since Ebola is not and airborne disease, confinement and careful isolation strategies are the best way to handle individual patients. Transportation adds to the number of people involved and increases the possibility of errors.

4 here to the US, others to Paris, Germany, Norway, Spain.

It was done safely with no ill effects on the patients or the transporters.

No reason not to send Ms. Pham to Nebraska or Emory. None at all.

Extremely expensive.
Also, I believe we only have one or two of these planes in the whole country.

We can't pay for a 2 hour flight to get Ms. Pham to a secure facility where she'll be surrounded by people who know what the fuck they're actually doing?

We only need one plane. Are they otherwise engaged at the moment? Perhaps they could pencil her in on their very busy schedule.

How many more HCWs need to infect themselves before it's worth the tab??

treating infectious patients without further spreading disease.

They already cause too many nosocomial infections because of sloppiness and SIMPLE FAILURE TO WASH HANDS. Time to grow up and start paying attention to guidelines and established protocols instead of brushing them off as inconvenient, bothersome, unnecessary, or too expensive.


Because there's a hell of a lot more out there than Ebola.

Yes, they need much better training and equipment. But you don't 'train them in the field' with live ebola virus. There is absolutely no margin for error.

The stakes are way too high here.

No dress rehearsal.

I paid attention to that lecture in vet school. I didn't end my education on graduation day. I'm a professional with serious responsibilities that i refuse to shirk because there are more interesting things to do. So when I encountered a rabid animal I WAS PREPARED. And I didn't need Big Mama CDC breathing down my neck to get me to do it.

I am tired of excusing intellectually lazy "professionals", whether they are physicians, nurses, or yes, even veterinarians. If you won't take it upon yourself to learn your job inside-out, maybe you are in the wrong line of work.

ETA: I am sick to death of everyone saying how offensive it is that the nurse might have (gasp) been human and committed human error. Give me a fucking break.

And what would have happened if you had been exposed?

You would get a shot and be fine.

Rabies is native to the US. Of course you were trained extensively to deal with it. Ebola is not. How you can compare the two is beyond me.

"Stephen S. Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said, “I don’t think every hospital has the facilities or the wherewithal, or for that matter the desire, to care for Ebola patients.”

Dr. Morse said it would make sense to transfer patients to the hospitals with specialized isolation units, or to designate certain regional hospitals as Ebola centers. But, he added, “you obviously have to have a safe way of transporting them to a center.”

Dr. William Schaffner, an expert on infectious disease at Vanderbilt University, said that a referral system for Ebola cases was worth discussing. He added that the subject came up repeatedly in conversations among doctors at a national meeting of infectious disease specialists last week."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/us/questions-rise-on-preparations-at-hospitals-to-deal-with-ebola.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=0