It was a little more eventful than usual watching the Sunday morning news programs yesterday, because rarely do they begin with breaking news. But there it was yesterday at 9 a.m. for everyone to absorb — the report that a female nurse involved in the treatment of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola in Dallas, has now been confirmed to be carrying the virus, the first time it's been transmitted within the U.S.
Few details have been released about how this nurse contracted the virus, but CDC Director Tom Frieden is calling her infection a result of a "breach in protocol" at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where she treated Duncan. President Obama has ordered an inquiry into what went wrong there.
The nation's hospitals aren't ready for an Ebola outbreak. That's what a representative for the country's largest nurses' union said yesterday in Oakland, nor are they prepared to protect the people who may be called to fight it on the front lines.
"What is really important to note," Bonnie Castillo of the Registered Nurses Response Network told the Contra Costa Times, "is that the guidelines the Center for Disease Control want us to follow are insufficient and inadequate. We have to get those things corrected."
According to a survey conducted by National Nurses United:
85 percent of nurses surveyed report that their hospital has not provided education on Ebola with the ability for the nurses to interact and ask questions.
76 percent of the nurses report their hospital has not communicated with them an official policy regarding potential admission of Ebola patients.
39 percent said their hospital does not plan to equip isolation rooms with plastic-covered mattresses and pillows and to discard all linens after use. Only 8 percent said they were aware their hospital did have such a plan in place.
37 percent of nurses said their hospital had insufficient supplies of eye protection or fluid resistant gowns.
These workers are on the front lines. Though there's a lot of talk about hyperbole in the media regarding this situation, who can blame nurses for expressing their worries, now that they've seen one of their own infected — something that wasn't supposed to happen. It appears to be a violation of protocol, but monitoring is supposed to take place when health care workers take off their protective gear, to make sure they're doing everything correctly. That obviously did not happen here.
In other news.....
As concerns mount that the U.S.-led coalition's fight against ISIS isn't as effective as it should be, Vermont independent U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders cautioned everyone to chill out a bit. Speaking on CNN's State of the Union yesterday, he did say that the fight was for the "soul of Islam," and that our allies in Europe and the Middle East need to get their act together and commit more resources, because Americans are weary of having to pay and die for a global problem.
And if you missed it, CL's Terrence Smith covered last Thursday night's town hall meeting in Tampa that asked the question, could civil unrest erupt in Tampa like it has in Ferguson, Missouri?
And the folks over at Facebook will be conducting a seminar for small business folks later this week in Ybor City to give out tips on increasing social media presence.