Are American hospitals ready for Ebola?

[texarkana 551]

I retired from a major trauma hospital in 2009 and even then I knew they weren't going to be able to handle a large epidemic of any kind. Most ICU's only have 1 or 2 negativepressure isolation units.I also don't trust the CDC especially after their most recent mishaps of sending out supposedly deactivated anthrax and "finding" still live samples of smallpox forgotten in a storage room. I also find it disturbing that after the reports coming out now about the 1st US case of ebola I am finding little discussion on other nursing boards about this. We should be scared, we all know how administrators water down things,that's their job.Also patients lie,the CDC doesn't really know how many people this man came in contact with,also I believe he knew he was infected and fled Liberia before he couldn't hide his symptoms anymore.We all knew we were only one air flight from a pandemic ,well the plane has landed and from one reply on this board apparently Houston has a large population of Nigerian immigrants. This man will not be the last one, there are clouds on the horizon.In a lot of hospitals infection control is a joke, put that with understaffing and cost cutting. We need to start communicating with each other. Start looking at your own hospitals infection control policies, are they being followed.Start asking questions that could save your life,look at the numbers of health care workers in Africa that have already died doing their job.This is a health care emergency, you might say don't panic, well if panic involves having hospitals actually doing and enforcing their own infections control policies well then let the PANIC begin.Emergency rooms are going to start being overwhelmed by anybody that has a temp or upset stomach. I guess we will all know in about 21 DAYS.(mark your calendar)

[icumufasa]

The disease came n went, the paranoid people were left feeling stupid, Africans including myself were stereotyped. I made more enemies at work due to ignorance than anything else. The thing is, reading books should not stop in nursing school. Educate yourselves people. The last thing you want to do as a medic is make people believe that the zombie apocalypse is coming up therefore they should lock themselves in bunkers.

[toomuchbaloney]

The disease came n went, the paranoid people were left feeling stupid, Africans including myself were stereotyped. I made more enemies at work due to ignorance than anything else. The thing is, reading books should not stop in nursing school. Educate yourselves people. The last thing you want to do as a medic is make people believe that the zombie apocalypse is coming up therefore they should lock themselves in bunkers.

Bold and italics mine.

I am not certain that the paranoid people feel stupid at all. Some of them continue to try to make a case that people should be more frightened of ebola, that it can have a respiratory transmission.

[do5051]

Individual healthcare organizations needs to develop a strategic plan that includes the education and training of health care providers designated to care for a patient is suspected or confirme Evola Virus Disease. The plan needs to include simulation training, which affords the learner opportunities to practice with in a setting that mimics "real life" and with PPE. Once validated in skills such as donning and doffing PPE, laboratory skills, etc, there need to be frequent drills to maintain competency. In my learning environment, we drill 5 times and then quarterly to maintain skill sets as patients are infrequent. The goal of the plan is to support the health care provider to transfer knowledge and skills from the learning environment to the clinical setting.

Reponses from those having first hand experience in training or care, or anyone, would be most welcomed.