Nurses Warn of ‘System Failure’ as Ebola Spreads to US Healthcare Worker
Privatized hospitals not providing proper training and equipment to front line workers, charges country’s largest nurses union
by Lauren McCauley
Commondreams.org
Monday, October 13, 2014
Privatized U.S. hospitals are driving a “system failure” in the face of the Ebola epidemic, warn nurses, who say that healthcare facilities and workers across the country are ill-prepared because of poor training and oversight— putting those on the front lines at great risk.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed Sunday that a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital tested positive for the virus after treating Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of the disease last Wednesday.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden blamed what he called a “breach in protocol” on the part of the healthcare worker for the spread of the infection.
However, nurses across the country have warned for weeks that hospitals are not doing enough to prepare for the epidemic.
“We’re seeing that caregivers who are not being adequately trained are being blamed,” said registered nurse Katy Roemer during a Sunday press conference hosted by the country’s largest nursing union, National Nurses United (NNU). Roemer said that the organization has been asking hospitals to provide hands-on training during which nurses can ask questions about the precaution measures, to no avail. “We cannot blame the healthcare providers who are on the front lines, risking their lives to help patients and then face possible infection themselves,” Roemer continued.
“You don’t scapegoat and blame when you have a disease outbreak,” agreed Bonnie Castillo, director of the Registered Nurses Response Network at NNU. “We have a system failure. That is what we have to correct.”
Castillo and Roemer are among the voices expressing growing concern over the poor federal oversight of hospital preparedness, including proper staff training, in light of the Ebola crisis. “Because we have a privatized health care system it’s all over the board,” Castillo explained to CBS News. “There’s no uniformity or enforcement mechanism.”
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