Just days after the California Department of Health designated UCSF hospitals as Ebola centers, nurses at the hospital are saying that they're not ready for an outbreak after all.
At a demonstration Tuesday, UCSF nurses argued that they haven't been trained to deal with the disease, that UCSF lacks the facilities or the staff to care for Ebola-afflicted patients, and that they only heard that they'd be the ones to treat SF's Ebola cases in the media, not from their bosses at the hospital. Here's a video taken at the demonstration in which the nurses state their case:
According to an SF Examiner report from earlier this week, UCSF is spending "several hundred thousand dollars" to prepare for the deadly disease, including construction of an isolation room. The hospital is also seeking at least 30 volunteers to treat patients, in addition to over "70 doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and laboratory scientists" who've already volunteered to help any Ebola patients.
However, Erin Carrera, nurse at UCSF for the last 12 years, says that the hospital lacks the "equipment, training or staff to care for even one Ebola patient if they are to come in today," reports the Examiner.
"The only training or preparation they’ve received is by email," reports KCBS and "not one nurse has been given a personal protective suit or even a protocol for screening patients."
“We were blown away on Friday to hear announced that we are going to be an Ebola center and that we are ready to take any Ebola cases to come in the State of California," Carrera said Tuesday.
"We’re not ready. We’re hearing the same from our colleagues across the UC’s. It’s an outrage that they’ve put that out in the public that we’re ready when we’re not. We need personal protective equipment. We need training. We have received none of that."
At present, there has not been a single case of Ebola reported in the state of California. According to an announcement issued today by California public health director Dr. Ron Chapman, anyone who arrives in California from an Ebola-affected area and who's had contact with an infected person will be quarantined for 21 days.
“This order will allow local health officers to determine, for those coming into California, who is most at risk for developing this disease," Chapman said in a statement.
The quarantine, Chapman said, is expected "to contain any potential spread of the disease by responding to those risks appropriately."