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October 14th, 2014
10:45 PM ET
Doctors in Dallas try to ease Ebola fears
Nina Pham is the first person to contract Ebola in the U.S. and that has many in the area fearing the same fate. Gary Tuchman is in Dallas where he saw how doctors are working to put nervous patients at ease.
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Post by: AC360 Filed under: Ebola • Gary Tuchman • Nina Pham |
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Cooper thinks the public is incredibly stupid by trying to blame this whole Ebola fiasco on the lack of transparency at the hospital in Dallas. We can see right through you Anderson. We know who you are carrying water for. The CDC is a mess and had no protocol for the treatment of Ebola yet they told us how safe it is to treat Ebola here in the US Fire the head of the CDC. He's an idiot who claims he's worried about the frail political systems in third world countries. Well worry about the health of your fellow citizens in the US. That's your first responsibility,America..
Why not have some of the Doctors without borders teach proper protective gear protocal, and coordinate some of the care and protocals for hospitals?
The survivor rate for Ebola in Africa is 30 percent. What makes these people not die from this deadly disease living in countries with non-existent health care infrastructure? Do Ebola survivors have something extra in their immune system or did Ebola survivors been expose to another illness that created this extra something in their immune system? Health researchers should do an immune system DNA analysis to see what makes Ebola survivors special. Though, health researchers would need to analyze the immune system of these 30 percent before patients do get sick. Health Researchers could then identify people who will be part of this 30 percent.
Ebola survivors are giving blood to current sick people so to boost the immune system of Ebola patients. What if the blood of the 30 percent that possesses this anti-body, were given to people who are in quarantine before the onset of this disease? Another way may be to expose people to this other disease that creates this special antibody.
If researchers can discover what makes these 30 percent of the population special, then researchers may put this Ebola epidemic to rest.
Having worked in clinical laboratories for over twenty years, the fault of deviation from protocol is rarely due to the infected healthcare worker that did not follow universal PPE precautions. The fault is usually due a co-worker(s) actions of non-compliance or simply the establishment's bad safety policies .For an example, see email chain pasted below:
RE: Safety Concern Crockett, Larry
Sent:Wednesday, August 13, 2014 7:40 AM
To:Rogers, Joshua Cc:Hannah, Dina; Toxicology; Latner, Henry; Carbonneau, Eric
Hello all EAC/FTOX Staff, In response to the complaint below, we had a short staff meeng today to review which areas of the EAC/FTOX lab are designated as clean and which are not. ( All staff except Eugenia Brazwell and Lorraine Kronowit were in aendance. The absent staff are copied on this email.)
riCore Reference Labs classifies areas of our building as green, yellow or red. The closest map to EAC of Woodward’s second floor is posted on the wall near the entrance from the carpeted hall way into the lab. It clearly shows all the tesng areas of the EAC/FTOX lab as RED and designates this as a PPE required area. The only areas in our lab colored GREEN and considered “clean” are the three offices on the East side and they are labeled as such with INFO-0-I08 signs to remind staff to remove PPE before entering. The third category of YELLOW designates areas such as hallways as OK for PPE to be worn or not. These are the pass through corridors and are designed to allow staff to move from green to green or red to red without constant donning and removing PPE. Our only yellow area is the East hallway from the back door to the offices. Please use this door to enter if you are not in a lab coat. This is also the only path that food or drink may be carried through. Always wash your hands when leaving the tesng areas and before you eat, drink, or touch your face. Sinks and hand sanizer dispensers are located around the lab and in the yellow zones as well.
The simple rule is to wear PPE in the “dirty” areas and remove it when entering the clean areas. All tesng equipment, telephones, PCs, and fixtures in the tesng areas of our lab are considered “dirty” and may have biological or chemical hazards. Use PPE to protect yourselves in these areas. Please clean up any chemical or biological spills at once and keep our “dirty” areas as clean as possible. Please keep the clean areas clean by never bringing hazardous materials into those clean areas and remove your PPE when you enter these areas. Hooks are available for lab coats where they are needed and you can keep gloves in your pocket or at the bench so they are always at hand when required. Responsibility for safety resides with each of us.
Longer term plan is to mark off the red, yellow and green areas of the lab as part of the second floor safety project. Unl then be aware of your locaon and use PPE where needed. Thank you,
Larry Crocke, MT(ASCP) TriCore Reference Laboratories Technical Supervisor, Esoteric Analycal Chemistry 1001 Woodward Place NE, Albuquerque, NM 87102 (505) 938-8095 (Office) or (505) 938-8968 (Lab) larry.crocke@tricore.org
From: Rogers, Joshua
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2014 11:54 AM
To: Crockett, Larry Cc: Hannah, Dina
Subject: Safety Concern
Good afternoon Larry,
Based off of a complaint that employees in EAC/FTOX where wearing gloves to answer the phones and typing on key boards aer they had been in contact with hazardous materials while wearing the gloves. I observed at different mes during the work process the employees of EAC/FTOX failed to remove their potently contaminated gloves prior to touching the following items: Phone, computers, door handles and other workstation.
Please provide a correcve acon plan on how to address the before noted issues by the close of business on Aug 13 th .
Thank you for your prompt attention to the safety issues. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Josh Rogers, CHSP, CHCM, CPSO, CHEP
Safety Manager TriCore Reference Laboratories
1001 Woodward Place, NE Albuquerque, NM 87102
Office: (505) 938-8023 Cell: (970) 518-5703
Point taken. You cannot reliably overcome an inadequately designed facility or process by implementing poorly supported stop-gap human-error prone procedures–(I wonder what was the corrective action plan and verification of effectiveness provided by Larry Crockett? If everyone was retrained and that was all I would not be surprised). Relying on the hospitals to manage this disease lifecycle (diagnose, quarantine, treat patients..and manage a controlled and secure environment for multiple patients and staff) is unfair to all. Moving patients to the CDC-Emery hospital (it appears they can manage this) should be the protocol until facilities are established that are designed, commissioned, equipped and operated to meet the requirements of containment- and staffed appropriately with competently trained and well equipped personnel. Staff should be quarantined to ensure any compromise of the primary containment is mitigated. I feel this is not the last of Ebola, or Marburg or whatever comes next and a process and procedure should be established here at home that can quickly be exported to the sites of origin when these epidemics crop up. This is sounding like the Andromeda Strain, hopefully without the auto-destruct button.