Ebola ‘nightmare’ for nurses as union demands protection for its members

Source: Washington Post

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As more patients are diagnosed with Ebola, the nurses caring for them may be at risk for contracting the illness. In an attempt to protect them, the nation’s largest union of registered nurses is asking President Obama and Congress for help.

“This month has been a nightmare, frankly, for the nurses across the nation,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, representing 185,000 nurses, at a national conference call on Ebola preparedness Oct. 15. Another nurse, who called in, put it even more forcefully: describing Ebola as the “nurse-killer disease.”

Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of National Nurses United, or NNU, speaks before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Friday. She wants Congress to mandate that all hospitals in the U.S. follow protocols to protect not only nurses but other health care workers and patients.

National Nurses United has also sent a letter to Obama requesting he issue an executive order mandating standard protocols as well. “We would not send soldiers to the battlefield without armor and weapons,” wrote DeMoro, and the group is asking for signatures on a petition as well.

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We’ve all seen photos of health care workers lumbering about in hazmat suits, but not all hospitals have such equipment available for their staff. Although the Centers for Disease Control has issued guidelines regarding protective wear, they’re only guidelines without the weight of law behind them, Burger said in a phone interview Thursday. “Even with the new CDC guidelines, they’re still not mandated and 5,000 hospitals in the U.S. get to pick and choose” what to do.

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“This is really a female profession,” she said, with at least 90 percent of registered nurses women. “But look at the protective gear worn by fire fighters and paramedics, even what the workers at the CDC wear when they’re dealing with a single vial of the Ebola virus.”

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/10/24/ebola-nightmare-for-nurses-as-union-demands-protection-for-their-members/