Nursing & Ebola Surveillance

[RNMA15]

So, the first US Ebola patient visits the hospital, informs the nurse he has recently travelled from West Africa- the epicenter of the deadly Ebola epidermic, and is sent home on antibiotics. According to Hospital sources, this information failed to reach all concerned. Random public reactions include calls to stop flights from the region. Some blame the hospital for missing the opportunity to contain the infection 2 days earlier. What do we learn about surveillance as nurses, global health, international travel & deadly infections. What is your individual role as a nurse in helping communities and individuals understand Ebola? Have you taken time to understand it enough?

[RNMA15]

I think all nurses should be offered Ebola training. Today if you are headed to Africa to care for patients you receive training from the CDC. If you are a nurse in the states it seems more difficult to find. I am a nurse who provides care in the community with no training from a hospital. If Ebola spreads like the news just reported every nurse in America should have the training.

Side note; my local news has labeled the American nurse a hero! I agree.

PrayeRNurse,

2 decades ago I was a student nurse in the sub-Sahara when I suggested that nurses were just as much heroes in the war against infectious diseases as soldiers in a war zone- and I still remember how people thought I was out of my mind! There was rampant TB then, no protective clothing or adequate respiratory isolation rooms, HIV was at its heights- a death sentence before retrovirals would become available for Africans, and there were also Cholera outbreaks- with isolation camps & regalia much like those we are seeing in the fight against Ebola! Now Ebola has just illustrated how nursing and other frontline health care careers can be just as dangerous... I thank your local News for commending this heroic nurse infected in the line of her duty to save a life! And finally I am so happy to hear the voice of nursing in this fight! Thanks for your contribution- I agree all nurses need training, even those not affiliated to hospitals...

[RNMA15]

Wow, you certainly have a lot of thoughts about this. Too bad that several of them are counterfactual.

In the first place, Mr. Duncan couldn't have just hopped on a plane and come to the US. It takes months for US visas to be worked out. His trip to the US must have been planned long in advance, and coincidence that the Ebola outbreak had started at about the same time. He and his girlfriend had been involved for decades (they have a college-age son), and multiple people have reported that he was, in fact, coming here to plan their wedding.

It has also been widely reported (now that the initial panic is starting to die down) that there is no evidence that he knew he had been exposed to Ebola before leaving Liberia. He helped a pregnant woman in his neighborhood to the hospital and back home again when she wasn't admitted, but multiple witnesses have reported that there was no knowledge at that time that she had Ebola; her acute problems were believed/assumed to be complications of her pregnancy, and no one was concerned about Ebola until after she was dead (and Mr. Duncan had already left the country). He was not sick at the time he got on the plane, and, in fact, passed the mandatory health screening in the Liberian airport prior to being allowed to board.

Even if your suspicions were true, do you really believe that, if he knew he had been exposed to Ebola, he would voluntarily choose to expose his fiancee' and his own child?? If he were really attempting to simply escape Liberia, he could have done that without exposing his family members and loved ones. It's been reported since his death that, once he was diagnosed, he said that, if he had known, he never would have exposed them, he would have just stayed in Liberia and taken his chances (of course, you can choose not to believe that, either).

As for him being a "jerk" and a "shady character," all the reporting I've read of accounts by people who actually knew him have said just the opposite; that he was a warm, kind, caring person who went out of his way to help others.

I've gotten say, you sound pretty paranoid about this. I'm glad to hear you've decided against nursing as a career.

What We Know About Thomas Eric Duncan, The First Ebola Patient Diagnosed In The U.S.

THANK-YOU, elkpark! I was relieved at the end of that article to learn that the writer never got to say the Nurse's pledge! It would be too scary...

[RNMA15]

@Tc3200 I agree with you that he is to blame for bringing Ebola here. Whether he could jump on a plane or it took him months to receive the pass to board a plane and come here, he shouldn't of. Plain and simple. Yes the hospitals are unprepared also. But really I question whether or not he knew he was at risk. Will we ever know? Probably not. All we can do is figure out how to keep it from spreading. I am a pre nursing student but this will not deter me from my dream career!

FYI an American citizen is to blame for taking Ebola to Nigeria! Thats why the blame game is meaningless…I don't understand why you think "He shouldn't of" (I suppose you meant "He shouldn't have) given your later argument about whether he knew he was at risk??? If he didn't know he was infected, which is most likely, there's no reason to blame him for doing something thats within his rights- travelling to the USA with a valid visa and passing the current test for Ebola on travellers from west Africa! Or for reporting to a hospital when he fell ill in the USA and responding to all the questionnaires he was given without raising any red flags...

However, I am glad you are determined to complete your nursing program- because you will come to learn that Global Epidemics are inevitable in a globalized world, and that healthcare has known for years and has been preparing for such epidemics! At the least, we have something to learn from our mistakes as a system, going forward. I must say I am impressed with your attitude toward figuring out how to deal with it henceforth. This should not deter anyone from pursuing nursing, it should be an opportunity to grow our career and be able to meet new and emerging healthcare challenges! Go for it!

[Sloan RN]

I think my individual responsibility as a nurse in this Ebola situation is to a) be familiar with my hospital's plans for handling Ebola and b) be well-informed about the disease itself so I can help educate people who ask me about it.

I've been pretty disappointed in the general lack of knowledge, or in the buying into media hype and misinformation, I've seen from other nurses. We are supposed to be better than that. We are supposed to know how to evaluate evidence and how to recognize reliable sources. Instead I've seen fellow nurses regurgitating information from random news outlets that's sensationalized or flat-out incorrect, or opining about vague government or political conspiracies. Give me a break!

People in the public trust us. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves so that we don't inadvertently mislead them. We need to be prepared with accurate information that can be backed up with reliable sources.