Ebola Doctor Reveals How Infected Americans Were Cured
http://www.scientificamerican.com/...
Bruce Ribner, medical director of the hospital's Infectious Disease Unit,
The other thing I would hope we would get across to the public is this is a disease where we don’t have to have a lot of secondary infections—if we follow standard infection-control procedures. We had 26 people giving direct patient care to these patients and we did not have any secondary infections at all, and that’s as we expected.
We were using contact precautions and droplet precautions. Fortunately, we don’t have to go to that level of protection [wearing protective full-body suits like in west Africa]. You wear whatever you need so that the blood and body secretions don’t come into contact with you, depending on the quantity of fluids. We used gowns and gloves and foot coverings of the health care workers in order to prevent contact with the body materials of these individuals. Our approach was what CDC recommends: you wear a mask and goggles or a face shield to prevent that infection. Some of the nurses spending three to four hours in patients’ rooms were more comfortable wearing hoods than masks and face shields, though those would have been adequate. We can manage care with minimal chance for secondary spread. It’s not as though we brought the plague to American shores.
When I first heard about the protective gear worn / used by the Healthcare workers here in the U.S.A. , I wondered , if overseas healthcare workers are catching and dying of ebola while outfitted from head to toe , will less than full head to toe work here ? I guess I now know the answer .
My guess is the standards for protective gear use will be upgraded in the U.S.A. now that the old standards have been shown to be less than what is needed to keep healthcare workers safe . It might be a royal pita to wear the full kit , but I think I would go for the full kit myself .
The rules the nurses work under come from above them , they are told what they must do ,
they don't get to do what ever they want , afaik . If they are told they must do the full suit , that is what they must do , if they are told to just use the standard , that is what they must do . I don't blame them for not protecting themselves such as they might have wanted / needed . I think that buck stops on someone else's desk .