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US NURSES: We're Not Prepared To Handle Ebola Patients
Reuters ^ | October 4, 2014 | JULIE STEENHUYSEN, REUTERS

Posted on 10/04/2014 7:02:31 AM PDT by maggief

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Nurses, the frontline care providers in U.S. hospitals, say they are untrained and unprepared to handle patients arriving in their hospital emergency departments infected with Ebola.

(snip)

A survey by National Nurses United of some 400 nurses in more than 200 hospitals in 25 states found that more than half (60 percent) said their hospital is not prepared to handle patients with Ebola, and more than 80 percent said their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola.

Another 30 percent said their hospital has insufficient supplies of eye protection and fluid-resistant gowns.

"If there are protocols in place, the nurses are not hearing them and the nurses are the ones who are exposed," said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which serves as both a union and a professional association for U.S. nurses.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ebola
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To: maggief

Dear Nurses: I love you people dearly as a group because of the profession you have chosen. But if you voted for Obama, you voted for your executioner.


21 posted on 10/04/2014 8:11:22 AM PDT by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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To: maggief

I worked in a tissue typing lab during the big new days of AIDS. Most of us were young students, but our supervisors were mature adults. My supervisor - a wonderful woman named Gloria - would grab all the tubes which came in with the bright HIV labels and insist on doing them herself to not expose us college kids to them.


22 posted on 10/04/2014 8:15:49 AM PDT by Yaelle
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To: ogen hal

“Nurses as a group vote LIB/DIM. You reap what you sow. Get to work.”

If I am put in a risky situation at work as a nurse, I will quit. And so will many nurses. No job is worth my life. So your smugness goes out the door when you arrive at the ER with no nurses to take care of you.Therefore, the hospital administration who gets paid the big bucks need to have a plan in place.


23 posted on 10/04/2014 8:45:38 AM PDT by kaila
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To: kaila

If there is such idiocy to bring about an accidental Ebola outbreak, you won’t have a choice, nurse or otherwise. People suffer the consequences of other people’s actions whether you like it or not. There’s plenty of decent people in harm’s way. Firefighters, EMTs, nurses, etc.


24 posted on 10/04/2014 8:56:44 AM PDT by Morpheus2009
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To: Texas Eagle

I’m an ER nurse, and I’m not a union member- precisely because of their political affiliations.


25 posted on 10/04/2014 8:57:40 AM PDT by 60Gunner (The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. - Plato)
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To: maggief

Yet, CDC Frieden claims any ol’ Podunkville Hospital and Veterinarian Clinic can handle Ebola. Nevermind that they’s spent billions of tax dollars to build Level 4 sanctioned Ebola isolation units.


26 posted on 10/04/2014 9:08:47 AM PDT by bgill (CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: cpdiii; All
Spot on, doc.

For those unfamiliar with infection control, there are varying levels of precautions: Standard, enteric, droplet, and airborne. We choose the PPE based on the precautions. The last word that came down to us was that proper attire was gown, N95 respirator (or PAPR if the N95 does not fit properly), shoe protectors, and double gloves. We could also put an N95 respirator on the patient for extra measure. If they don't (or won't) keep the mask on, we can isolate them. If they threaten to leave, add security. If they persist or try to leave and ebola infection is suspected, strap them down because they are a threat to the safety of the general population.

Lawsuit, schmawsuit. It's a different world now.

Plus, any nurse worth his or her salt will operate on the assumption that a person with flu-like symptoms and/ or a fever is infected and contagious until a negative screen result is in.

We do this already with MRSA and C. difficile as a routine. It's not that much more of a stretch to extend that to isolating ebola patients.

As for this article, my bet is that the nurses who were interviewed were union shills jockeying for advantage in contract negotiations.

27 posted on 10/04/2014 9:10:31 AM PDT by 60Gunner (The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. - Plato)
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To: exDemMom

I was talking to the husband of a woman who works in research in a major hospital. They are very conservative. Even so, his response was laughing at Ebola.


28 posted on 10/04/2014 9:16:16 AM PDT by bgill (CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: 2ndreconmarine; Fitzcarraldo; Covenantor; Mother Abigail; EBH; Dog Gone; ...
Ping…

A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread

29 posted on 10/04/2014 9:24:23 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: Morpheus2009
You might want to take back your statement- you were ordering nurses to work.No one orders me to do anything.
I am not a slave, and if the situation does not seem safe to me, I will leave. I am not a Kamikaze suicide soldier.

And, my hospital is open shop, and I do not belong in a union.

30 posted on 10/04/2014 9:26:18 AM PDT by kaila
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To: 60Gunner

Thank you for all that you do.


31 posted on 10/04/2014 9:34:57 AM PDT by Gator113 ( Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Mike Lee speak for me, most everyone else is just noise.)
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To: wetphoenix
Screw them! What a nurses they are after that? Some jobs means certain obligations and it is one of these jobs.

It is difficult to understand your garbled attempt at using the English language, but it seems you are trying to say that nurses should be willing to die because patient care is their profession.

32 posted on 10/04/2014 9:36:01 AM PDT by NautiNurse (Obama sends U.S. Marines to pick up his dog & basketballs. Benghazi? Nope.)
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To: maggief

More than 90% of union dues collected by the nurses union goes into the Democrats pockets.
What’s interesting is about 20yrs ago Hillary Clinton was so vocal about her dislike of nurses and commented that they made too much money.
I wonder if the nurses will support HC?
Yeah,they will be worshiping at the feet of the cloven hoofed one,should she decide to trot in 2016.


33 posted on 10/04/2014 9:37:54 AM PDT by peteyd (A dog may bite you in the ass,but it will never stab you in the back.)
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To: boycott
Did you think I was seriously saying Obama was providing real leadership in the fight against ebola?

No, not at all. Sorry if I left that impression. :)

34 posted on 10/04/2014 9:50:46 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: kaila

Ignore the morons and thank you for all that you do.


35 posted on 10/04/2014 9:52:25 AM PDT by Gator113 ( Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Mike Lee speak for me, most everyone else is just noise.)
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To: yldstrk

Do something.

Really. Where are the Pilots, Flight Attendants, Nurses etc who, basically, will staff no mans land? If this goes far enough it may all be up to the Men with guns and hemp...


36 posted on 10/04/2014 9:55:49 AM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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To: cpdiii
The real problem is we do not have many rooms in our hospitals that can provide this level of care.

No. The real problem is that America is already broke, thanks to leftist policies by the likes of Barack Obama. We can't afford any epidemic, much less this one. Ergo, why it is being inflicted upon us.

I heard that the hazmat cleanup for Duncan re: the apartment he'd been staying is about $65,000. Multiply that by 100 and your average large city in the US will quickly be unable to pay for or handle this situation. Few doctors, nurses or aids will want to put their lives on the line to treat Ebola patients, which will require higher pay....much higher....for their care.

Coming at a time when many Americans' insurance is in a state of transition or non-existant...and when many Americans have lost their doctors and their health insurance plan, this new crisis looks to be deliberately orchestrated, just like the current and ongoing southern border invasion.

When the hell will people wake up and smell the reality?

37 posted on 10/04/2014 9:56:37 AM PDT by XenaLee (The only good commie is a dead commie)
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To: XenaLee

Blowing in the wind my friend. People figure all is well in America, and with so many hopelessly idiotic, naive, people who actually bother voting, well, we’re going downhill thanks to this.


38 posted on 10/04/2014 10:10:12 AM PDT by Morpheus2009
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To: NautiNurse

That is how I read it too. This attitude comes from folks that could never do the job.

I went in for heart surgery and expected a 6 to 8 day stay in the hospital. I suffered a stroke during surgery and contracted MRSA. My stay in the hospital turned out to be 2 very long and very painful months. I actually have fond memories of that time, only because of the nurses (and my wife) that helped me through that nightmare. I had an army of doctors, but were it not for the efforts of my great nurses, I don’t think I would have made it.

Be safe..... and thank you for all that you do.


39 posted on 10/04/2014 10:19:26 AM PDT by Gator113 ( Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Mike Lee speak for me, most everyone else is just noise.)
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To: NautiNurse

I agree. It’s a degree, not a death pact.


40 posted on 10/04/2014 10:21:54 AM PDT by Black Agnes
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