Nurses' union slams Texas hospital for lack of Ebola protocol

[LovingA2andMI]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by greatauntoftriplets (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: CNN

"The Texas hospital where two health care workers contracted Ebola while caring for a patient had guidelines that were "constantly changing" and didn't have protocols on how to deal with the deadly virus," a nurses' union claims.

"The protocols that should have been in place in Dallas were not in place, and that those protocols are not in place anywhere in the United States as far as we can tell," National Nurses United Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro said Tuesday night. "We're deeply alarmed."

Officials from National Nurses United declined to specify how many nurses they had spoken with, nor identify them to to protect them from possible retaliation. The nurses at the hospital are not members of a union, officials said.

Here's a look at some of the allegations the nurses made, according to the union:

Claim: Duncan wasn't immediately isolated

On the day that Duncan was admitted to the hospital with possible Ebola symptoms, he was "left for several hours, not in isolation, in an area where other patients were present," union co-president Deborah Burger said.

Up to seven other patients were present in that area, the nurses said, according to the union.

A nursing supervisor faced resistance from hospital authorities when the supervisor demanded that Duncan be moved to an isolation unit, the nurses said, according to the union.

Perry heads to Europe despite Ebola situation

Claim: The nurses' protective gear left their necks exposed

After expressing concerns that their necks were exposed even as they wore protective gear, the nurses were told to wrap their necks with medical tape, the union says.

"They were told to use medical tape and had to use four to five pieces of medical tape wound around their neck. The nurses have expressed a lot of concern about how difficult it is to remove the tape from their neck," Burger said.

Claim: At one point, hazardous waste piled up

"There was no one to pick up hazardous waste as it piled to the ceiling," Burger said. "They did not have access to proper supplies."

Claim: Nurses got no "hands-on" training

"There was no mandate for nurses to attend training," Burger said, though they did receive an e-mail about a hospital seminar on Ebola.

"This was treated like hundreds of other seminars that were routinely offered to staff," she said.

Claim: The nurses "feel unsupported"

So why did the group of nurses -- the union wouldn't say how many -- contact the nursing union, which they don't belong to?

According to DeMoro, the nurses were upset after authorities appeared to blame nurse Pham, who has contracted Ebola, for not following protocols.

"This nurse was being blamed for not following protocols that did not exist. ... The nurses in that hospital were very angry, and they decided to contact us," DeMoro said.

And they're worried conditions at the hospital "may lead to infection of other nurses and patients," Burger said."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/15/health/texas-ebola-nurses-union-claims/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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Insulting, ridiculous and yet unsurprising in the privatized health care system of the United States of America. If this is the standard in the USA for this latest PLAGUE....we are all screwed.

[Fred Sanders]

1. The Liberian emergency hospitals, set up by Cuba, have far better procedures and had them long ago.

Ebola has been studied for 40 years, it's transmission and precautions are well known, the hospital administrstion wanted to save money on an uninsured black man and were not listening to the expensive advise of medical staff......can I say that out loud?

[LovingA2andMI]

3. Yes, Fred....

You can say that outloud as it is the reason why the uninsured West African Resident from Liberia with a spiked fever was send home, instead of immediately being placed in isolation to stop the spread of this awful disease.

[Teamster Jeff]

2. Any Non Union Nurses speaking out?

I'm guessing not. Probably would be fired immediately.

[LovingA2andMI]

4. More likely than not Jeff

Nope as they would be fired without cause, immediately and not treated with the proper protocols if they were to show symptoms of the Ebola virus.

[Horse with no Name]

6. They would be.

Without a doubt and employees are told as much at hire.

[procon]

5. Texas brags about being anti-union

It's reasonable to expect a nurses union would have worker safety, training and protocol compliance as top issues in collective bargaining negotiations. Of course, that would chip away at the profit margin, which also explains why the hospital was only offering a cost free seminar with voluntary attendance as a substitute for the expense of formal training and regular drills to keep staff skills current, which would also lead to wage increases as those skills increase.

The cost factor of equipping and maintaining any specialized unit is very high as everything has a limited shelf life and has to be routinely replaced, and it appears the management cut corners to save money and did not bother the stock the supplies needed which forced the nursing staff to devise their own makeshift workarounds. If the hospital had no established safety protocols or failed to follow them, its likely to suspect that all their other programs are just as poorly managed.

When profits are the motivating factor, the issue is not just worker safety, but patient and public safety risks as well. Hind sight being what it is, even though they are not without faults of their own, a strong union would have been in a position to mitigate the risk factors, and like the patients who had a successful recovery in Nebraska, lives would have been saved.

[Demeter]

7. Oh, now we are up to two official cases?

Doubling in a week....

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Nurses are fighting back...effectively.

What protocols? It doesn't sound like any were in place.

[greatauntoftriplets]

9. Sorry, but we're locking this as a dupe.

Please see this thread: http://upload.democraticunderground.com/1014918336