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?
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...
I'm right there with you on this. My family and being alive to care for them means more to me than a job.
I didn't read every comment, but this really worries me. I work with a healthy patient population in L&D...but they have the opportunity to be exposed as well. Plus well once someone say in the ER is exposed....it can quickly make rounds through the whole hospital. As a parent.this really is scary. I do not want my children getting sick from this or me.
I'm asking this because I don't know: how easily (if it all) can ebola spread from person to person through casual contact? For example, can one person sitting in the ED waiting room spread it to the person sitting a few chairs down--presuming no contact of bodily fluids from the infected person with the uninfected person?
Plus I'm not sure I see the validity of these arguments since the individual brought to Atlanta from Africa was brought in a medical plane and immediately placed in isolation in a "sophisticated" isolation unit. While this unit is not foolproof, I, as I said earlier, trust this unit a whole heck of a lot more than I trust the authorities in Africa to screen people before they get on a plane.
I find it strange that people are passing judgment on those nurses who don't think they'd want to take on such patients.....saying that these nurses are somehow confused as to what nursing is, why did they become nurses, etc etc.
Do those of you with the opinion that every nurse should lay down his or her life in the care of someone with a deadly disease ever consider that people become nurses for reasons OTHER than wanting to care for those with absolutely fatal diseases that cause the afflicted person to suffer a horrible death?
There are MANY avenues of nursing that don't require one to risk life and limb for the care of another person. And many choose nursing for reasons that don't involve the expectation of PPEs as a means of survival.
YES, of course we all went through the education process in nursing school, we all had the clinical assignments where we learned how to don PPEs and how to handle the various infectious situations that MIGHT come up, were EXPECTED to come up.
Nowhere in my list of career expectations was cleaning up an Ebola patient ever an option.
I also believe it's mighty easy to SAY what you'd do in the event you were being pushed into the room of someone with a 100% fatal disease if ANY exposure occurs....but do you really know? And do we really know all of you would be right there to jump into that room in our place?
There is some measure of human nature that urges some to give themselves a martyr's appearance by claiming they'd throw themselves on every grenade to save the sick.
Sorry, I do have my doubts. And I firmly believe I'm being much more honest than some others here.
I'm asking this because I don't know: how easily (if it all) can ebola spread from person to person through casual contact? For example, can one person sitting in the ED waiting room spread it to the person sitting a few chairs down--presuming no contact of bodily fluids from the infected person with the uninfected person?
Plus I'm not sure I see the validity of these arguments since the individual brought to Atlanta from Africa was brought in a medical plane and immediately placed in isolation in a "sophisticated" isolation unit. While this unit is not foolproof, I, as I said earlier, trust this unit a whole heck of a lot more than I trust the authorities in Africa to screen people before they get on a plane.
It cannot. Ebola is spread ONLY through contact with infected bodily fluids.
While the doctor says he was careful about donning PPE, I can tell you from experience that the quality of isolation equipment in Africa is antiquated compared to what we have here. I'm talking, the gloves I saw in the hospitals over there were thinner than the thinnest trash bag you have ever seen and ripped so easily that your hands always ended up soiled. And you were lucky if there was one bar of soap in the whole hospital.
The general public in Atlanta or the US is NOT at risk... unless these people are planning to break down the doors of the isolation unit at Emory Hospital and lick the doctor's blood.
This outbreak started 6 months ago and, in 3 countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Lione), it has infected 1300 people and killed about 700. Guinea has a population of 11.45 million, Libera 4.19 million and Sierra Lione 5.979 million. So we're talking about almost 22 million people in those countries and only 1300 have contracted the virus. Do the math, that's a very low relative risk. And that's in AFRICA which doesn't have the sophisticated medical technology and/or knowledge that we have. It's also in countries where people routinely handle their dead relatives' bodies and don't have running water or soap.
And, for the record, while this may be the first time that a patient with active Ebola has been treated in the US, the ebola virus itself is already in the US. The CDC has it and has had it for years. I'm so done with the hysteria about this.
It cannot. Ebola is spread ONLY through contact with infected bodily fluids.
While the doctor says he was careful about donning PPE, I can tell you from experience that the quality of isolation equipment in Africa is antiquated compared to what we have here. I'm talking, the gloves I saw in the hospitals over there were thinner than the thinnest trash bag you have ever seen and ripped so easily that your hands always ended up soiled. And you were lucky if there was one bar of soap in the whole hospital.
The general public in Atlanta or the US is NOT at risk... unless these people are planning to break down the doors of the isolation unit at Emory Hospital and lick the doctor's blood.
This outbreak started 6 months ago and, in 3 countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Lione), it has infected 1300 people and killed about 700. Guinea has a population of 11.45 million, Libera 4.19 million and Sierra Lione 5.979 million. So we're talking about almost 22 million people in those countries and only 1300 have contracted the virus. Do the math, that's a very low relative risk. And that's in AFRICA which doesn't have the sophisticated medical technology and/or knowledge that we have. It's also in countries where people routinely handle their dead relatives' bodies and don't have running water or soap.
And, for the record, while this may be the first time that a patient with active Ebola has been treated in the US, the ebola virus itself is already in the US. The CDC has it and has had it for years. I'm so done with the hysteria about this.
THIS.
Count me as one who is not impressed by the hysteria.
There have been small incidences, and if one isn't surveying infectious disease rates, of course this would be of concern; but I learned in my Public Health class that there are many diseases, including Ebola, have been in the US, but the incidence has been so low, it really isn't an issue.
Too bad when Outbreak came out it made more people scared of Ebola, instead of understanding how diseases, endemics, and pandemics work, but then again, guess that's entertainment..,and now we have THIS.
We are all expendable...the government says so that's why money talks...if you have money you will get treatment for the worst diseases..donate big bucks to a hospital and your in ... Your a VIP...look at Magic Johnson the longest living HIV pt in the world..social security won't last for my age group so what better way to get rid of a few than to bring a deadly virus back and kill off a few folk...and not to mention they are making history by treating the first US case...
Quite off-topic - a friend of mine was infected with HIV in the early 1980s. He hung on long enough to get on the anti-HIV cocktail. He is thriving today. He's not a celebrity or a bigwig in any way - just a normal guy who got lucky. There are many others like him who have been infected longer than Magic Johnson.
We now return to our regularly scheduled, uh, whatever this is.
We are all expendable...the government says so that's why money talks...if you have money you will get treatment for the worst diseases..donate big bucks to a hospital and your in ... Your a VIP...look at Magic Johnson the longest living HIV pt in the world..social security won't last for my age group so what better way to get rid of a few than to bring a deadly virus back and kill off a few folk...and not to mention they are making history by treating the first US case...
You have a lot to learn. Keep your head down in nursing school. I'm being serious. Nursing instructors don't like judgemental students all that much. Trust me - they have the power to make your life miserable.
You have every right to have an opinion. The way you express it and where you choose to express it can get you into a heap of trouble. It's best that you learn that BEFORE you start nursing school.
We now return to our originally scheduled civil conversation.
But I'm American I'm a veteran and I'm in nursing school I work for the VA so my job is already solidified and my mother and grandmother were and still are nurses so I have every right to my opinion
LOL
eeffoc_emmig
305 Posts
I'm right there with you on this. My family and being alive to care for them means more to me than a job.