Ebola here in Dallas USA

Nurses COVID

Published

Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.

A nurse, really? Really? My God, if it does spread here in the US, looks like we have our healthcare providers to thank for that! I can't frigging believe it! Someone must live in their own isolated world. I originally thought he didn't tell the healthcare providers but apparently he did. I'm thoroughly disgusted!

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"...He sought medical care on the 26th, but was sent home because the medical team "felt clinically it was a low-grade common viral disease," said Mark Lester, executive vice president of Texas Health Resources. "He volunteered that he had traveled from Africa in response to the nurse operating the checklist and asking that question," Lester added.

"Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team...."

Interestingly, my mother just informed me she heard on one of the major news outlets (CNN or FOX) that "a nurse failed to communicate the patient's travel history."

Of course. It's always the nurse's fault. :(

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A nurse, really? Really? My God, if it does spread here in the US, looks like we have our healthcare providers to thank for that! I can't frigging believe it! Someone must live in their own isolated world. I originally thought he didn't tell the healthcare providers but apparently he did. I'm thoroughly disgusted!
From what I am gathering (limited info thus far), the nurse reported it on the triage/intake form.However, some of the media spin I am hearing is that "the nurse didn't communicate his travel history adequately."I will refrain from bad language until we have more information.I just hope that the Admin and ED docs don't throw this poor soul under the bus if she/he did indeed report it on the intake form.
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Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.

If you were doing intake on this patient, would you really NOT make absolutely 100 percent certain anyone coming near this patient knew of the history? Would you not immediately doan PPE and escort the patient into isolation then immediately get a doc and TELL him what's going on? You're right, though, I should wait for more information. But writing something like this on an intake report and doing nothing with it is totally negligent.

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Specializes in Cardiopulmonary Stepdown/Cath Lab, ICU.

Of course it was the nurses fault. Why would the media report that sometimes the almighty physicians make mistakes too...

While it is possible there was a failure in communication. I highly doubt we will hear anything other than "the nurse failed to communicate his travel hx properly". Which may also be the case, I guess we'll have to see what happens

Ebola shouldn't be hard to contain in this, or many developed countries with modern healthcare practices and isolation practices, but now that we have "patient zero" here in the US, I guess we will see and we're not off to a promising start.

Basically it is spread like HIV, body fluids. Unlike HIV, there are a lot of symptoms that indicate there is an infection, which is when a person becomes symptomatic and contagious.

The scary thing about this epidemic is it is affecting a lot more people than past outbreaks, which gives a virus more chances to mutate. That's the scary part.

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Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.

Perhaps I should also add . . . if you told the doctor the pt's travel history, and the doctor treated it as gastroenteritis and wrote discharge orders, would you not then start calling his/her supervisor? Certainly instills a lot of confidence in our healthcare system (sarcasm, obviously). I'm just astounded.

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Specializes in Anesthesia.

Ebola/Marburg

The Ebola virus is transmitted by contact of infected body fluids. The reason it spreads so easily in other countries is the lack of PPE and cultural practices such as family members washing the bodies of the deceased before they are buried.

You cannot compare the spread of contact virus with the spread of airborne virus such as the Spanish flu, and that doesn't even consider the fact that of trying to compare modern healthcare versus early 19th century healthcare systems.

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Specializes in hospice.

With general American education levels on geography, and the propensity of many not to pay attention to the news, maybe the nurse didn't realize why being from Africa was relevant. Especially if he said "Liberia." There is a frightening number of Americans who can't find the US on a world map, so how many have any idea where Liberia is?

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Perhaps I should also add . . . if you told the doctor the pt's travel history, and the doctor treated it as gastroenteritis and wrote discharge orders, would you not then start calling his/her supervisor? Certainly instills a lot of confidence in our healthcare system (sarcasm, obviously). I'm just astounded.

I've been listening to one of the major news networks, and they keep mentioning "the nurse that did the intake" in the same sentence with "the information was failed to be communicated throughout the medical team."

Does this mean he or she failed to write it down on the intake form? I don't know.

Here's the deal, though: If this is a busy ED, the triage nurse has no further interaction with the patient after they are admitted into the system. They never see them again. Even at discharge.

The triage nurse completes the initial assessment, and fills out the forms. If the patient is deemed medically unstable (cadiovascular/respiratory distress), they will be ushered back in a hurry.

If I put myself in this nurses shoes, and considering just how often we in the U.S. see diseases such as ebola (like, almost never, if ever), I can see how she or he simply filled out the paperwork and expected the MD would read it, as they are supposed to do.

I'm getting really tired of the media consistently reporting on "the nurse."

If "the nurse" did not in fact write the information down on the intake form, then yes, there is a bigger issue there.

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Ebola/Marburg

The Ebola virus is transmitted by contact of infected body fluids. The reason it spreads so easily in other countries is the lack of PPE and cultural practices such as family members washing the bodies of the deceased before they are buried.

You cannot compare the spread of contact virus with the spread of airborne virus such as the Spanish flu, and that doesn't even consider the fact that of trying to compare modern healthcare versus early 19th century healthcare systems.

Well said. Apples and oranges, here.

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Specializes in Anesthesia.

The job of the new media is not to inform it is to get people to watch that way they can get money from selling airtime for commercials, if you keep that in mind whenever watching the news it makes a lot more sense.

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