Ebola, news and discussion

[Kelt]

Originally Posted by SleepyButch

Nosocomial diseases are usually those infections/viruses contracted by patients in the hospital who are already immunocompromised. This does not related to hospital staff, which I think is what the big deal is over. The surprise is as nursing/healthcare staff, we should know how to prevent ourselves from being infected with anything, whether that be ebola, HIV, tuberculosis, etc. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in a previous post, we are all human and as humans we make errors. Now you have nurses who have been infected, taking care of patients in a hospital. To me that is a huge deal. I'm not so much worried about the person that they encounter in the grocery store.

While every hospital doesn't have to be prepared for this type of thing, what happens when a person comes into any ole hospital with symptoms that may not scream ebola or do for that matter. What's that hospital to do? They all need to be prepared for any type of infectious disease scare in my opinion, which to me means protective garb and a negative pressure room. Also they should have yearly training as part of continuing education, which we all need to have anyway. Unfortunately though, hospitals are busy and short staffed so this kind of training doesn't occur.


I agree that we shouldn't be pointing fingers. We just need to get everyone on the same page and try to contain it as much as possible and save as many people as they can.

I couldn't agree more and should clarify that I was not talking about healthcare staff individuals. My thoughts are more about admin policies that allow for training and basic equipment to be inadequate for regular encounters with the sick public. The reactions are as though it was somehow new.

Anytime you put a lot of sick people in a small space things are going to spread. This time of year especially lots of folks will present with fever and who knows where they came from? I don't have the answers but also wish everyone could stop looking for targets and and coordinate getting sensible precautions in place. A possible positive outcome would be that facilities will have the needed supplies and training going forward beyond whatever this outbreak brings.

A surprise to me or maybe I'm misunderstanding... I though all hospitals in the US would have at minimum PPE and a negative pressure room. Is that not true?

Note; my background is not medical at all. I come from the biohazard/HAZWOPER side of "keeping tiny bugs out".