[Dr. Thomas Frieden, Cdc Director:] You know, I've thought often about it. I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the patient, the first patient, was diagnosed. That might have prevented this infection.
[Berman:] That was the head of the CDC saying in hindsight he would have done things differently with the first Ebola patient in Dallas. Nurses wish officials had a team and, moreover, a plan in place before this situation.
[Pereira:] Yeah. They're making some pretty astounding claims about how woefully unprepared Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was to deal with Ebola. They say the patient who eventually died, Thomas Eric Duncan, he wasn't immediately put into isolation. They also say that nurses' protective gear left their necks exposed, that hazardous waste piled up and that nurses received no hands-on training to deal with Ebola and generally they felt as though they weren't being supported.
[Berman:] Jean Ross is co-president of National Nurses United. And, Jean, thanks so much for being with us. Given this list of complaints that we saw this morning, can we expect more cases in the coming days?
[Jean Ross, National Nurses United:] Well, you always hope you won't but let's face it, there's a breach there because of the lack of protocol. Not a breach in the protocol but a lack of it as the nurses say. So it's what those nurses in Dallas are telling us is what we found from our survey. You know, overwhelmingly they're all saying the same thing. To the public, to the CDC, whatever, they say we are all prepared, don't worry. And the nurses are saying no, we are not. We ask for the plan. They either don't have one, they direct us to a website and say, "Here are the CDC guidelines." We ask for direct hands-on training and drilling, practicing, and either we don't have the staff, we don't have the equipment, et cetera.
[Pereira:] And the fact is, you can't control when a patient comes to your hospital with a fever or an illness or potential Ebola case. We know that that's not something you can anticipate. You were part of the conference call held yesterday held by the National Nurses Association. There's another conference being made today. I'm curious. What kind of specific changes are you and the nurses wanting? I think that all of us would agree, given the fact that a second nurse now has become sick, the urgency really increases.
[Ross:] It does. We have felt the urgency for some time, but true to form, very often what we warn about employers do not take, we believe, seriously enough. And that goes for many other issues, not just Ebola. Unfortunately because we don't have a nationalized system of health, we have a for-profit, fragmented, piecemeal system here, and people really are urged to do to follow CDC guidelines. But you can't mandate it. There's no enforcement, and you cannot do a coordinated effort unless the hospitals choose to do this. Now this you know, people are picking at this Dallas hospital, but truthfully, this could happen at any hospital in America, and from the response at our survey, they are all saying we're in the same shape.
[Berman:] It's interesting you say that, because these are not the first Ebola patients treated in the United States. They were treated at Emory Hospital in Atlanta and there were no infections among the health-care workers there. They've been treated in Nebraska at a hospital there. No infections among the health-care workers there. So where does the responsibility lie then in the case of Texas Health Presbyterian?
[Ross:] Well, it's very clear to us. We're very clear, as a nurse, what our responsibility is, it's to care for the patient, to advocate for the patient, and to let the employer know when we are not prepared. It's the employer's responsibility to make sure we are prepared and have the appropriate gear to do so. They just have not been listening, or listening too slowly. So we want a single uniform standard, an optimal standard, a gold standard, for what equipment we should be using and how to use it. We see that with the people at Emory. We see that with the folks in Nebraska. We see it with the people that are over in Africa trying to help and we believe that that uniform standard should apply to any of us as we approach these patients that may come in.
[Pereira:] Jean, this may seem completely out of left field, but I'm thinking about the fact of what we've seen over the last few years, with the economy the way it is, budgets being constrained. I'm really curious if you think any of that played into how well, obviously it plays into how day-to-day operations are being done. But, I can imagine if there is that kind of those kind of constraints, they're only made worse by an emergency like this.
[Ross:] You know, I can't speak for what happened in Dallas, in particular, as to the whys and wherefores of why they chose not to set up the protocols and do it well from the get-go. But I can tell you from my over 40 years of experience as a nurse, the for-profit bottom line mentality that we have, well in everything, but in health care it's disastrous. And so it wouldn't matter if it were Ebola. Unfortunately, now that is what it is. It's a life-threatening virus. But we, as nurses, deal with this all the time. We tell employers this is what we need. This is what needs to happen and unless you have a union contract and have ways of doing more than encouraging the employer to do what's necessary, you can't make them. Nobody can make them.
[Berman:] Jean Ross, co-President of National Nurses United., thank you so much for being with us. And again, we thank you and everyone in your profession for the work that you do and are doing right now.
[Pereira:] The tough work, the important work, and the hands-on work. That's the thing. The front lines of this battle, it's the front lines. You have to pause and reflect on that a little.
[Berman:] Look, which makes the questions that we're asking right now all the more important.
[Pereira:] We get accused of sort of trying to point the finger and play the blame game, but we're trying to figure out what went wrong so we don't repeat it again. We don't want Dallas happening in other cities across America.
[Berman:] And among the allegations for what went wrong no proper training, no proper protective gear. These, again, the alleged mistakes that were made in treating the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States. We will play more of what nurses claim happened in that hospital ahead.