The media was alive today with the news of a second nurse being tested positive for Ebola after providing medical care for the first ever patient diagnosed with this disease in the US. Rumors are swirling while we are being reassured we have nothing to fear and it is being contained. However, it is hard to remain at ease when we hear that this nurse had flown on a commercial flight with 132 other people after notifying the CDC.
So, why did this happen?
The main reason is our inexperience. In the US, we have never had to deal with Ebola. These healthcare workers were thrust into a position of treating something we are just learning about. There were no protocols in place at that time so these healthcare workers were not adequately protected. To be fair, we are facing a new threat that guidelines have had to be developed retrospectively. Casting blame is not going to help us reach a solution to this rising spread of a disease that many of us never expected would show up within our borders. We all need to come together and discuss the faults in the system and ensure this never happens again.
The nurse should have not been allowed to fly. Given her high risk exposure and the fact that she was under watch, she should have been informed not to travel, especially using public transportation. She did take steps to do the right thing by notifying the CDC when she began not feeling well. However, she was given the wrong advice. The ball was clearly dropped here and I doubt anyone would disagree. Now, the task is to find all those she may have exposed.
There also seems to be a lack of adequate communication. The CDC has set up guidelines but they are not reaching the health care workers. Many doctors have received no notifications about what we need to know if we were to find a suspected Ebola case. Also, the local health departments are not stepping up to the task of getting these guidelines to the people who need to know them. Many LHD also do not feel adequately prepared.
Many missteps have been taken in the current Ebola cases. Rather than finding who to blame, we all need to learn from these. Many people are scrambling to get a handle on this and how to contain it. The fact that nurses got infected in the call of duty is a true travesty of the American healthcare system. They are truly heroes for stepping up to the plate in such an uncertain situation and putting themselves at risk.
As Ebola flourishes in West Africa, we all need to have a heightened awareness. We need to ask travel history. And we need to act if we ever suspect a person is infected with Ebola. The most important task is exposing the least amount of people as possible and notifying the proper authorities immediately. While it is easy to fault the ones in charge, it is truly a systems failure. As we all learn in this process, we need to collaborate and fix the system failures.
My thoughts go out to the brave nurses being treated for Ebola.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2014 Linda Girgis, MD, FAAFP
