It’s all broken, folks. Top to bottom. White House to dogcatcher and everywhere in between.
Read on for proof.
#1–
—snip—
7:43 p.m. EST: The CDC knew. Amber Joy Vinson, the 29-year-old who is the second nurse to test positive for the Ebola virus after caring for the first Ebola-stricken patient in the US, reportedly contacted the Centers for Disease Control before boarding a commercial flight Monday because she was suffering from a fever. Government officials did not advise her not to fly because she did not meet the temperature threshold of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, NBC News reports.
CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a press briefing Wednesday that, in retrospect, Vinson “should not have traveled on a commercial aircraft.”
—snip—
- 12:24 a.m. EST: Tape. Seriously, tape. In light of Nina Pham, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian who is the first person to contract the Ebola virus on American soil, National Nurses United (the largest nurses union in the country) released details of the alleged conditions at the Dallas hospital that may have lead to Pham contracting the virus.
- Lab samples from Thomas Eric Duncan (who died Oct. 8) traveled through the hospital’s general specimen delivery system, putting it at risk for contamination.
- Duncan potentially exposed seven other patients to Ebola when on Sept. 28 he was not isolated for several hours in the emergency department.
- The nurses who cared for Duncan also cared for other patients
- Training for Ebola was an optional seminar.
- Nurses weren’t held to a consistent set of guidelines.
- To keep “flimsy” garments secure, nurses had to use medical tape.
“Patient and employee safety is our greatest priority and we take compliance very seriously,” said Wendell Watson, a hospital spokesman, in a prepared statement. “We have numerous measures in place to provide a safe working environment, including mandatory annual training and a 24/7 hotline and other mechanisms that allow for anonymous reporting.”
—snip—
* Tuesday, 3:12 p.m. EST: It’s our fault, too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted yesterday that they weren’t aggressive enough managing Ebola and containing the virus at the hospital.
“I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the patient, the first patient, was diagnosed,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the CDC, in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. “That might have prevented this infection. But we will do that from today onward with any case, anywhere in the U.S.”—snip—
DALLAS –
Despite strong words from the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday, a federal spokesperson is now reporting Dallas nurse Amber Vinson did notify health officials she had a low grade fever before she boarded a plane in Cleveland
.
Soon after Dallas officials reported Vinson tested positive for Ebola, the CDC announced she had taken a flight from Cleveland to Dallas Monday after spending the weekend with family.CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden expressed concern about Vinson’s travel and noted she was one of the nurses who had extensive contact with Ebola victim, Thomas Eric Duncan.
“Because at that point she was in a group of individuals known to have exposure, she should not have traveled on a commercial airline,”
—snip—
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on investigations is expected to hold hearings Thursday on the response to these Ebola cases. The chief clinical officer and senior vice president for Texas Health Resources, which oversees Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, is one of several witnesses expected to testify.
Prepared remarks by Dr. Daniel Varga published on the subcommittee’s website read in part, “Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr. Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly skilled medical team, we made mistakes. We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry.”
MONTGOMERY VILLAGE, Md., October 15, 2014 — News of yet another American Ebola victim has dominated the news today. The fact that America’s sophisticated health care system has shown such serious chinks in its armor is of concern to all of us.
Those chinks began to show up from the appearance of the first Ebola patient on American soil. A Liberian national, Thomas Duncan, came into a hospital in Dallas — the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital — exhibiting symptoms of Ebola. He informed the receiving staff at the hospital of the fact that he came from Liberia. This information was ignored. He was sent home with antibiotics.
Why wasn’t Duncan hospitalized and quarantined immediately, and precautions taken to prevent the spread of the infection? Cynics would say that because he was from a foreign country and without health insurance, he received a different standard of care than he would have otherwise.
Four days after Duncan was sent home, he reappeared at the hospital in worse shape. He was then hospitalized, but not before having to wait in the emergency room with other patients. According to media reports, he was not immediately given the proper treatment, a fact that may have contributed to his demise a few days later.It gets worse. Since Duncan died, two of the health care workers who took care of him have been diagnosed with Ebola.
The head of the CDC claimed that the first healthcare worker infected had not used proper protocol when donning and taking off protective equipment. In a subtle way, this put the blame on the person and not the system. The second healthcare worker diagnosed had, after the death of Duncan and the Ebola diagnosis of the first nurse, flown to Cleveland and back to Dallas. One has to wonder about her judgement. She has been transported to a specialized hospital in Atlanta.
The nursing organization National Nurses United has responded that nurses are subject to managerial orders and have little leverage until there is a crisis. They have complained that decisions are made or heavily influenced by people not usually trained in epidemiology. The nurses have criticized the lack of training in epidemic response.
This is what should be expected from the management of for-profit hospitals. When nurses are training, the health corporations don’t make any money.—snip—
Several things were made clear by the comedy of errors of the last few weeks:
1 Volunteer quarantines are not effective;
2 The CDC has to be given more authority and should exercise it decisively;
3 Health professionals have to be trained to respond appropriately to epidemics like Ebola;
4 In a for-profit health system, we can’t trust accountants to act like epidemiologist;
5 Did I say that quarantines have to be made mandatory?—snip—
Three strikes and yer out!!!
Up and down the line.
The military.
The CIA.
The CDC.
The IRS.
It makes no difference.
Nothing is working.
Collapse time.
Watch.
AG
