No worries USA. Only healthcare workers will be exposed to ebola.

[Raviepoo]

Last night I read that the CDC is planning to transport at least one American Citizen with the ebola virus to Atlanta for treatment. Driving around today my car radio kept assaulting me with experts soothingly asserting that there is no reason for the American population to fear exposure to the virus. To a man they all went on to say that only healthcare workers were likely to be exposed.

If you're a healthcare worker raise your hand. Are you angry? Do you feel like you're being considered expendable? Less than fully human? Are you worried?

I don't favor deliberately bringing ANY known infected person across the ocean to this continent. OK, Ebola is not all that easy to contract. It's a lot harder to contract if it is thousands of miles away.

The virus is spread by contact with infected body fluids. So lets say a nurses aid in a hospital comes in contact with those body fluids (diarrhea, emesis, blood, whatever. Accidents happen even if you take precautions.) What is to stop her from spreading the virus to her husband or child? What is to stop a child infected in this way from spreading it within his classroom?

I have always been able to deal with the concept of ebola by reminding myself that it exists on another continent. Perhaps I'm being selfish, but I believe that anyone sickened in Africa should be treated in Africa. We don't need to help diseases spread around the globe any more than we already do.

NIMBY. In this case, NIMBY. I'm not a NIMBY kind of girl, but this terrifies me.

What do you think? What would you do if you were assigned a patient know to be infected with Ebola?

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

What would I do? I would do just as I do with my HIV or TB patients. I would be assiduous about precautions, wash my hands frequently and bring all my knowledge and compassion in caring for them and their families. At least I would like to think this is what I would do in my calm, hypothetical world.

Yep, it is only healthcare workers who will be exposed. I don't imagine we'd truck in other groups and I do imagine most of us who signed up to be healthcare workers knew we'd be working with infectious people. A global pandemic is only a matter of time. It doesn't matter what continent this thing starts on, it can and will migrate elsewhere. If not this virus, then some other one.

Nobody gets out of this life alive. I can think of worse ways to go than in contracting something while helping another person. That being said, I am wary and nervous as well. But the whole idea of not allowing people who contracted an illness in another country to have the full benefit of the advanced healthcare system in which they are a legal citizen is pretty harsh. Does it scare me? Yep. Do I think as a citizen of the US they should have the right to seek care in the US? Yep.

We can't just draw a wall around Africa until everyone who is going to die in there....dies. I probably would not be willing to do this out in the jungles of Africa. But in a negative air pressure room with advanced protective gear and decontamination procedures? Yeah, I would. I think. Probably.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

What do you think? What would you do if you were assigned a patient know to be infected with Ebola?

I know this probably sounds dreadful of me, but I'd probably refrain from taking report and accepting the assignment for the day. I can find another job, but I have only this one life to live...

In other news, a physician from my city of residence is not allowed to return to the US after having contracted Ebola. This doctor, a hospitalist at the local level one county hospital, visited an African country earlier this summer to do some volunteer medical mission work. He contracted it, and now he is stuck there.

I would not want to be him right now. The physician suffers as the result of having his heart in the right place and attempting to do good to mankind by offering his service to the sick and infirm. It's such a sad situation all around.

[Carpediem1012, BSN, RN]

I can't say it doesn't concern me- but what if it was your husband or child? I would want them to come home and to be treated by the best.... Tough call.

[T-Bird78]

I'm just outside Atlanta and it's been all over the news and they're doing a huge push to say how safe everyone will be with this pt here. This is the first time a pt with ebola will be treated in the US.

[toomuchbaloney]

I'm just outside Atlanta and it's been all over the news and they're doing a huge push to say how safe everyone will be with this pt here. This is the first time a pt with ebola will be treated in the US.

I'm pretty sure this is the first time that anyone has thought it a good idea to transport an ebola patient across the globe.

[elkpark]

Yep, it is only healthcare workers who will be exposed. I don't imagine we'd truck in other groups and I do imagine most of us who signed up to be healthcare workers knew we'd be working with infectious people.

You'd think so, but it appears, from reading some of the threads on this topic over the last few days, that quite a few of us made it through school and into the workforce without realizing we might someday be expected to provide care to people with serious communicable illnesses ... Go figure.

I am always amused when something like this comes up and many people act like this is the first time in history anyone in healthcare has ever been expected to do anything as outrageous as provide care to people with a communicable illness with a high mortality rate and no cure.

[tntrn, ASN, RN]

You'd think so, but it appears, from reading some of the threads on this topic over the last few days, that quite a few of us made it through school and into the workforce without realizing we might someday be expected to provide care to people with serious communicable illnesses ... Go figure.

I am always amused when something like this comes up and many people act like this is the first time in history anyone in healthcare has ever been expected to do anything as outrageous as provide care to people with a communicable illness with a high mortality rate and no cure.

This could be because in most of our lifetimes, due to the availability and use of preventative vaccines in our country, seriously infectious and deadly diseases have been mostly eradicated.

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

I am choosing to side with the medical professionals who think this is OK. They have to get a handle on this, and find a vaccine for it. The female missionary, a nurse, was given a unit of blood from a boy who had the virus, and recovered from it. This lady will arrive in Atlanta soon. Hopefully they will learn a lot more about the virus by having her in a facility such as Emory. (They wanted her first, as she is the one who rec'd the blood from a previously infected person.)

[Caffeine_IV]

Are they really choosing random staff to take care of an ebola patient? Per their statement, they have specially trained staff so I would guess they have had practice with the isolation procedures and possibly signed up to be able to care for these patients if the need arose. And in that case, I would do what I signed up to do.

[AWanderingMinstral]

You'd think so, but it appears, from reading some of the threads on this topic over the last few days, that quite a few of us made it through school and into the workforce without realizing we might someday be expected to provide care to people with serious communicable illnesses ... Go figure.

I am always amused when something like this comes up and many people act like this is the first time in history anyone in healthcare has ever been expected to do anything as outrageous as provide care to people with a communicable illness with a high mortality rate and no cure.

Well said. It is akin to the anger people express when their friend or family member is sent to, say, Iraq. What did you think they were signing up for?

[malestunurse]

Are they really choosing random staff to take care of an ebola patient? Per their statement they have specially trained staff so I would guess they have had practice with the isolation procedures and possibly signed up to be able to care for these patients if the need arose. And in that case, I would do what I signed up to do.[/quote']There is an infectious diseases ward at my hospital, I guess it would just be those nurses.