*rolling my eyes*

[OhioCCRN]

Here we go again with the media spouting idiotic information that they have no idea about and that cannot be explained with a few "google searches"

i find I am deeply irritated with the article about the RN who contracted Ebola for reasons of a blatant invasion of her privacy, and also for the following reasons.

1. You do not get Certified in nursing when you graduate from school, you have to take a test and you get licensed.

2. You do not need a CCRN to work in critical care and the absence of one does not mean you are not qualified for your position, or the fact that the Texas RN recently received her certification does not mean she was not qualified to care for a critically ill patient.

3. The sample exam of the CCRN on the website that the reporter gazed at for a couple of seconds in no way reflects a large percentage of the questions in the final exam, thus one can not make the assumption that there is no question on infectious diseases (which by the way is nursing 101 whereas the CCRN focuses on the hemodynamically unstable patient)

4. the constant parading of the pinterest quote leads me to believe that they want to emphasize that she did not trust in the knowledge of some of her physician colleagues (i mean really? we all work with certain doctors that make us question their every order because they just do not seem to get it)

...again, the media has absolutely NO idea what we do as nurses and is so incredibly lazy in its research that it does not even come close to scratching the surface.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

It's obviously a system failure. And we know that for sure now, after hearing nurse's reports of the working conditions and lack of appropriate PPE. To blame the infected individuals does nothing to solve the problem, Even so, Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources, which owns the hospital, said this morning "I don't think we have a systematic institutional problem."

THIS.

I'm going to say it again:

I said this on the other thread about Ebola, so here it goes:

If anything, something had to happen to reveal how poorly hospitals are managed and how they treat nurses; in the midst of all things, how nursing can band together and reveal to the public how corporized (my word) hospitals have been and how they care about the bottom line will be their downfall.

I knew it was going to happen, but I surely didn't suspect that it would come from an infectious disease.

The CDC is not like the Feds or National Guard; they cannot come and commandeer a private company, so no, I don't blame them entirely; however, the hospital said they had it under control, when obviously they didn't, and when corporate is refusing to approve proper PPE or even allow the CDC in, then the ire should be on how MANY hospitals are run.

This is a HUGE opportunity for nurses to step up and speak out in how facilities are run and allow the public to scrutinize how hospitals are run roughshod over how the front lines-especially NURSES are treated and ignored, and not supported...it has been prepared to happen, unfortunately it had to happen this way.

[golson]

"...again, the media has absolutely NO idea what we do as nurses and is so incredibly lazy in its research that it does not even come close to scratching the surface."

Welcome to the sensationalist 24 hour "news" cycle. At first, I thought they just crapped on the military, but slowly, over the course of years, I realized they will say just about anything to put asses on couches in front of TVs while their broadcast is on, true or not. Their entire industry is dependent on gaining advertising dollars, those are dependent on the size and composition of their customer base (in this case viewers, listeners, or readers). Once in a while, the welfare of the public and the interest of the public collide, but for the most part, it's half truths, false equivocations, and hyperbole. Please just keep this in mind when you see the next outrage or scandal they are reporting on, since chances are they are turning a mountain into a mole hill while real issues in the real world tend to go unreported and unnoticed.

[wannabecnl]

I don't usually go for the arrogant American argument, but in this case, we are WAY in over our heads. The way we handle Ebola or any other superbug in a fancy Level IV lab at Fort Detrick or the CDC has NOTHING to do with how to manage a patient in a regular hospital with a specific disease process going on. We need to take lessons from our colleagues in the field over there.

1. We need to really train our nurses and CNAs, lab techs, and all other hands-on personnel on how to manage the whole patient with Ebola, not just put up a flyer or require a seminar. We're in their faces, their bowels, their secretions, etc.

2. We need to get serious about quarantining people who have been exposed, even if they have travel plans! I learned today that Nairobi airport will not take flights from the affected countries in west Africa and hasn't for some time. Period. No arguments about whether it's fair or logical, just not happening. What on earth is the problem with saying if you've been within x feet of a person with Ebola in the last, oh, 3 weeks, you are not getting on a plane??? Or train, bus, or other public transit? How about you stay home or have your hospital put you up so you can keep working but not put the public at risk??

3. If the MSF stats are correct (4000 treated, 2 infected), maybe we need to outfit our US healthcare personnel with the REAL PPE that MSF and Samaritan's Purse use in the hot zone, not the stuff we use for MRSA in the nares!

4. We also need to avoid knee jerk reactions if we as nurses are to be taken seriously in this argument (even though I do think we are right!!!). For example, I wouldn't really compare the situation with Dr. Brantley with these new cases. He and Nancy Writebol were known to be sick from the get-go. They were transported back here in isolation on the plane, not just flying in the open cabin like Mr. Duncan and nurse Vinson. That said, I wasn't wild about him being brought back here; it seemed to open the public mind to transporting risky patients without talking about the vast difference between how we manage a known case vs. a known exposure.

5. We also need to be ready to educate our families, friends, and neighbors. I have one friend who complained that the media goes nuts about this but ignores the fact that the flu kills so many people every year, too. I pointed out that the flu, bad as it can be, does not have a 50-70% kill rate. It doesn't cause you to bleed out your orifices and infect rooms in ways we don't even know how to clean!

6. Finally, I don't have any ideas for this one, but somehow we have to make peace with going to work tomorrow or the next day, not knowing if the patient in the bed in front of us has a deadly disease that we can catch. I marvel at those working in the really bad areas, that they can go in there day after day knowing the risks. Sure, they seem to have it together, but all those nurses with no PPE that just wanted to help--that's an image I can't shake. I guess you could say we run that risk every day, especially those working in the ED.

[golson]

I'm guessing the problem with not allowing people from the affected area entry into the US is that they could use an intermediate country to fly to the US. Since they're already on the wrong side of the law at that point, they'd be less forthcoming about being potentially exposed. That has the potential to put healthcare workers in the US at even more risk.

[OhioCCRN, MSN, NP]

There are no direct flights (or very few) from the West African region (many countries, not just one) to the United States. So....

"Stopping" flights from that region does not work. People connect from many countries in Europe e.g England/Netherlands/Finland etc... i think the better argument would be, BETTER screening for Ebola in the European countries that are the connecting points between the ravaged countries.

[SeattleJess]

Nurses need to FLOOD the media with information. People feel safer blaming one bad apple but they need to know there's a problem with the tree!

[Mulan]

Ebola nurse Am​ber Vinson called CDC several times before flying - CBS News

"In the case of Amber Vinson, the Dallas nurse who flew commercially as she was becoming ill with Ebola, one health official said somebody dropped the ball."

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that Vinson called the agency several times before flying, saying that she had a fever with a temperature of 99.5 degrees. But because her fever wasn't 100.4 degrees or higher, she didn't officially fall into the group of "high risk" and was allowed to fly."

[TheGooch]

I wonder if there would be all this speculation about qualifications, blame about "break in protocol" using PPE, focus on Pinterest and focus on her personal life if it were a PHYSICIAN who contracted ebola.

A big NO. They would have found a way to blame a nurse.

[golson]

Related: "So we’re dealing with two different sides of the world, but similarly high levels of ignorance. On one hand, we have a public health information crisis. On the other hand, I would argue, we have an uninformed journalist problem. EbolaDeeply is our attempt at a solution for both."

We need to talk about Ebola | ideas.ted.com

[SnowballDVM]

Ebola nurse Am​ber Vinson called CDC several times before flying - CBS News

"In the case of Amber Vinson, the Dallas nurse who flew commercially as she was becoming ill with Ebola, one health official said somebody dropped the ball."

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that Vinson called the agency several times before flying, saying that she had a fever with a temperature of 99.5 degrees. But because her fever wasn't 100.4 degrees or higher, she didn't officially fall into the group of "high risk" and was allowed to fly."

See, this is why I don't think the CDC really knows what they are doing here either. So the bleep what if Ms. Vinson's temperature wasn't that high? SHE'D BEEN CARING FOR A PATIENT WITH EBOLA!!!! It was stupid of her even to consider flying, but at least she called the CDC to ask for advice. Why the HECK didn't the CDC person tell her it didn't matter what her temperature was, she shouldn't be flying commercial for several weeks because of her recent patient contact?

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

Nurses aren't ignorant of infection control, and in need of intensive "training," but rather they need the proper equipment to work with. It doesn't matter how much you know about preventing the spread of Ebola, if you don't have the proper PPE. I can tell you, my hospital would provide the cheapest crap they could get away with. What I find really mind-boggling is that the nurses had to take care of other patients, instead of making this guy a "one on one."

[MissyWrite]

The CDC appears to be the one ignorant of infection control. Yesterday, they admitted their guidelines for healthcare workers were too lax. FINALLY! But I think they still fall short.

Sean G. Kaufman, who oversaw infection control at Emory University Hospital while it treated Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the first two American Ebola patients, called the earlier C.D.C. guidelines “absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong.”

Yeah, no kidding! What were they thinking? What was anyone thinking, if they actually thought those guidelines were sufficient?

The CDC's new guidelines "are now closer to the procedures of Doctors Without Borders, which has decades of experience in fighting Ebola in Africa. In issuing the new guidelines, the C.D.C. acknowledged that its experts had learned by working alongside that medical charity.

The agency’s new voluntary guidelines include full-body suits covering the head and neck, supervision of the risky process of taking off protective gear, and the use of hand disinfectant as each item is removed."

Read the entire article and see a photo of the newly recommended PPE here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us...-say.html?_r=0

"Ebola kills 50% to 90% of people who become infected, which is much higher than any other infection we are used to dealing with. The 2009 influenza pandemic killed less than 0.01% of those infected, and SARS killed 15%. The price of getting it wrong with flu guidelines might be a week in bed, but for Ebola it is far more likely to be death."

http://nsnbc.me/2014/10/15/nurses-be...nfected-ebola/

"Personal protective equipment guidelines should not be based on presumed mode of transmission alone, but also on uncertainty around transmission, on the severity of the disease, on health worker factors, and on available treatments or preventions."

http://nsnbc.me/2014/10/15/nurses-be...nfected-ebola/