“I heard that number, 70, earlier and can’t believe it. How stupid are these people? You want the least number of people necessary to be in contact.”
As explained on another website, this represents days off, different shifts, different departments, etc...
In a Union Hospital, you aren’t going to get 24/7 coverage with just one or two people.
You are correct. Also, it is not just the nurses who are in contact with the patient. Think about the staff in the laboratory and the radiology departments, just to name a few and consider staffing these places 25 hours a day, 5 days a week. As a retired medical laboratory technologist, I am wondering how they handled all the various lab specs that came from that one patient. Did they set up a miniature lab separate from the main lab to avoid cross contamination and spread of the Ebola virus?
Oh, and I am certain this man was on dialysis which requires specialists around the clock too. I wonder how man of those isolation suits a hospital needs to take care of just one patient?
Unions have nothing to do with it. Full time for an RN is 3 twelve hour shifts weekly. as there are 14 twelve hour shifts in a week, you can do the math. In addition if a patient requires heavy nursing care (they are on a ventilator and dialysis, and require rigorous isolation techniques) it would be rare to assign the same RN three shifts in a row - the work load gets spread out to keep it even.
Now the hospitalists. Same thing, there are 14 twelve hour shifts in a week, and docs average about 3 1/2 shifts a week. Then add in an intensivist, same types of shifts and any needed consultants
The number of people is huge already, and that is before you add in lab techs, x-ray techs, janitors, CNA’s, dialysis techs, respiratory techs, clinical pharmacists, social workers and case managers, and the myriad of others required to care for a patient in a modern hospital. Its actually astounding that there are only 70 people exposed.
An isolation suit is contaminated after one contact. Then it has to be decontaminated. I would not be surprised if they were using each others’ suits. I’m sure they were using them over and over.