Nursing and the Ebola Virus

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For those of us in unaffected countries, are you concerned about the ebola virus spreading? Would you care for ebola patients? I live in an area with a very high density of African immigrants and come into contact with these individuals regularly. We have a lot of African immigrants who bring back tuberculosis from their home countries and at my unit we end up caring for them. We take care of a lot of rare infectious diseases. I was reading an article and it dawned on me how plausible it would be for me to encounter this virus. And I admit, it's terrifying and I might refuse that assignment. Many healthcare workers in Africa are dying because of caring for the ill.

Lets remember the transport was not the decision of CDC, Emory or the medical community. It was Samarian Purse a religious humanitarian organization run and directed by Frank Graham the son of Billy Graham. Who arranged this transport. Now they are pulling a lot of other members who have been working with these patients. According to the rules they can get aboard a plane and return here. Folks are talking about 21 days but according to some reports there have been incubation in 8 weeks as well? So how do we bring all these workers home?

It could not have been approved without the CDC, Government and Emory's permission.

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Do you have a link? I thought I read that the patient was in "grave but stable" condition.

American Ebola patient arrives at hospital - CNN.com Video

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Specializes in Acute Care - Adult, Med Surg, Neuro.

So from what I read from the other posts, patients require Standard, Contact, and Droplet precautions and Airborne if aerosol generating procedures in a negative pressure room. I wonder if most patients with ebola with need ICU-level care.

I looked at the link and I wonder if they are really the patients they saw. I have worn the "white clad" suit that looks like a space man suit for patients with bed bugs.

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Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.
I'm curious, how will the used linen be handled? How will lab specimens be transported and tests run? What special precautions will be taken for trash disposal? The patient may be in a protected, negative pressure room, but other hospital departments will be effected. Surely the patient will have radiology tests run, how will that be handled?

Not sure what I would do if I was assigned as the nurse, but I'd really have to think about it. Glad I'm not in that position. I can say though, I'm a nurse, not a martyr.

One of the news stations showed the isolation rooms and discussed some of these safety factors with the doctor at Emory. They showed areas where lab specimens would be processed in the isolation area and not transported to the hospital lab as well as the furnace for contaminated materials within the isolation area. Everything is in isolation and not run throughout the hospital.

I, too, remember the first AIDS patients being admitted to the hospital. Only the more experienced nurses cared for them as they were least likely to make careless mistakes. It is no different than what is happening now. I, too, fear that the public reading our forum will feed into hysteria. ("Even nurses are refusing to take care of 'them'".) It's not helping. Concern yes (where you do your job efficiently), hysteria no. Like someone wrote previously, take a deep breath.

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One of the news stations showed the isolation rooms and discussed some of these safety factors with the doctor at Emory. They showed areas where lab specimens would be processed in the isolation area and not transported to the hospital lab as well as the furnace for contaminated materials within the isolation area. Everything is in isolation and not run throughout the hospital.

I, too, remember the first AIDS patients being admitted to the hospital. Only the more experienced nurses cared for them as they were least likely to make careless mistakes. It is no different than what is happening now. I, too, fear that the public reading our forum will feed into hysteria. ("Even nurses are refusing to take care of 'them'".) It's not helping. Concern yes (where you do your job efficiently), hysteria no. Like someone wrote previously, take a deep breath.

I seen an interview that said there were only 4 hospitals in the US that has this level of isolation units. It didn't mention what the names and locations of the other three hospitals.

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To be entirely honest, I'm almost in a state of hysteria reading this thread!!!

?

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If I were your manager, I would send you packing, and report you to the BON in case I could get your license in trouble. I recall seeing people flatly refuse to care for AIDS patients back in the day, and I still don't understand why they weren't fired and stripped of their licenses on the spot.

OK, first of all, I can refuse any assingment I want, for any reason I want, and there's nothing the BON can do about it.

As long as I do not accept the assingment before it is handed off to me by the off-going nurse, it is not abandonment. I can't abondon a patient I never accepted in the first place. I could loose my job, sure, but not my license.

I don't know what I would do in this situation. It would depend on whether or not I felt the hospital had the technology and equipment available to provide some reasonable degree of saftey.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

I guess my main concern is this: There seems to be inconsistencies in what is being given out in terms of information. It is called "difficult to contract" but then requires pretty much a hazmat suit and there are recommendations to test people who have similar symptoms even if they have not had direct exposure. I feel a bit like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth. "Don't worry! Even healthcare workers won't catch it here! Everyone is very safe! Well. As long as you wear this suit. And goggles. And double glove and cover your shoes when it gets really bad and watch out for spray and droplets and don't touch anyone and go 21 days symptom free after taking care of them. No worries! Very safe!"

I am not a conspiracy theory type of person at all, but it feels just on the edge of "We have no freaking idea really how certain people contracted this but we'll keep presenting what we DO know as fact until we can figure it out."

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Specializes in Obs & gynae theatres.

Was this the guy who turned down the medication so that his colleague could have it? I really do hope that he is getting better. The signs look good.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
They are going to Emory University Hospital, where they are working on an Ebola Vaccine. Ebola virus uses protein decoy to subvert the host immune response | Emory University | Atlanta, GA

This story isn't comforting esp noting that Ebola has been found in pigs in southeast Asia. I had only heard of monkeys before and now bats and even pigs. It sounds scary.

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OK, first of all, I can refuse any assingment I want, for any reason I want, and there's nothing the BON can do about it.

As long as I do not accept the assingment before it is handed off to me by the off-going nurse, it is not abandonment. I can't abondon a patient I never accepted in the first place. I could loose my job, sure, but not my license.

Which is exactly why I said "in case I could get your license in trouble." There are other grounds for discipline besides abandonment. If there were a real situation (as opposed to the current fevered speculation) and this was happening (people refusing to care for individuals with a particular diagnosis), it might be possible to make a case that nurses were violating a state code of nursing ethics and could be held accountable for that. One never knows. If I were a manager, I would certainly be reporting people to the BON so they could decide if there were anything to pursue.

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Specializes in ICU,ER,med-Surg,Geri,Correctional.

I found this LA newspaper article to be a bit disturbing when we are all putting so much credit and faith in to the CDC. With no direct disrespect to CDC. It just about regardless of all procedures and policies there is always that element of human error. I don't think is any nurse who after losing a patient who was stable one min then dead the next that does not reflect on every little part of that patients day. I lost patients and could hardly sleep that night reliving all the days activities. I had a pt who had a CVA while giving a med. You best believe even though it was a med I gave thousands of times in my career that I relieve the events all the way from the v/s to the pyxis,to the dilution to the syringe filter the entire works. Ended up he had a bleed not related to the med and that had I not have been their since this was a general medical floor he may have not made it through because of our immediate intervention. But still none of us are perfect..

CDC outlines 5 incidents in which deadly pathogens were mishandled - LA Times

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