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Discussion

worries, SARS

Just some musings about a new SARS outbreak. Sense would tell me that there won't be another outbreak in CANADA, they have learned the hard way. However, another outbreak in China would most likely result in a hospital based outbreak in US. Why? Because our healthcare institutions are complacent at this point that is why. Like Canadian authorities in last outbreak they will be slow to respond, thus giving the bug a chance to get loose. After an US outbreak we will see many similarities to Canadian outbreak. The most noticible being that physicians and managment were warned by nurses at bedside that something was terribly wrong. They will dismiss the warnings from nurses at the bedside at their own peril. Eventually they will pay attention but that will be to late for some people. Boy I hope I my worries are groundless. The good point is that many lessons were learned during last outbreak that can be very useful if there is another outbreak.

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I hope we don't have outbreaks too. BUt if we'd follow our own Standard Precautions rules we would wear a mask when withing three feet of persons with symptoms of the flu or SARS.

Melba

Personally, I doubt if the US didn't have more cases of sars last year. Probably just called them pneumonia and moved on. It is important to note that a simple mask is not enough to protect against sars, you need a respirator mask like the N95s, and you need to be fitted to it. The real issue if there is another outbreak is supplies! Most places wouldn't have enough masks to properly protect staff (we didn't).

Forgot to say our nurses use a N95 for flu like symptoms and have been fit tested (for TB). I do agree most cases were missed. We have enough N95s mainly because we have a lot of TB cases.

Melba

  • Experts

one thing that many of you are overlooking............................sars has been documented to be passed by contact, not

air droplets like tb. big problem also occurs when staff is forced to work many 16 hour shifts in a row and get overly tired.................this was one of the main problems in china...........when someone is that tired, they do not always follow proper protocol. hope sars doesn't come back, especially if it would show up over here..............nurses here flip flop shifts to all three in one week and on a weekly basis. many times with no more than five hours off between shifts. when i ask why, i get told because that is the way that it has always been done............. :uhoh21:

You are right. Contact precautions includes gloves and handwahsing. I understand the double shifs. Been there, done that. Our job is to impress upon all nurse that no matter how tired the are, they still need to follow precautions. I did this by e-mal, fax, walk-around inservices, posters in the employee restrooms as well as traditional inservices. We need to use every method at our disposal to stop SARS in it's tracks.

Melba

  • Author

It has been many months since I wrote the statement contained at the top of this thread. Where I work I see an improvement in vigilance and preparation of anticipated outbreaks of anykind. Not perfection mind you but improvement.

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