Ebola Guidelines

“New Ebola protection guidelines leave no bare skin”

By: Monte Morin

Source: La Times

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/621/article/p2p-81732543

  Ebola is talked about every single day. It can shut down one's body and can be deadly. It is easy to become infected. Nurses and doctors are easily being infected because they treat Ebola patients. There was much criticism from healthcare workers and relatives of an Ebola-infected patient. U.S centers for Disease Control and Prevention have announced new guidelines for nurses and doctors to wear to protect themselves from becoming infected. These new guidelines eliminate areas of bare skin. They also need to have intensive training in the donning and removal of equipment. They now have provided a specialist who sits at a designated area in the hospital observing procedures and ensuring that the guidelines are properly followed through. Exposure of skin was making the nurses and doctors nervous of treating people with Ebola. Now with the new suits, they are confident in their work. Health officials gave criticism to U.S medical workers and politicians who we're complaining that the existing guidelines were too loose, and would expose them to Ebola. Doctors are beginning to buy their own suits out of nervousness. This issue came up because Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and infectious Disease, had taken a look at the airwaves. He concluded that two nurses in Dallas have been infected by exposure to a now-dead-Ebola-infected patient, Thomas Eric Duncan. Frieden had concluded that maybe these nurses had failed to follow the guidelines. Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas stated that they did follow the CDC guidelines. Some hospitals do not follow these guidelines and the patients breathing tubes and suction instruments may expose the nurses and doctors to the patient’s body fluids. The new guidelines require specialists to wear specialized breathing masks. These breathing masks help protect the workers from fluid splatter. These guidelines also recommend double gloves, boot covers, respirators, disposable face shields, and surgical hoods. CDC would be offering training to healthcare personnel to teach them how to handle the protective gear and to be Ebola free. 

  This article is important to read because it shows how doctors and patients who have Ebola are quickly infecting nurses. There are new guidelines by specialists that have created protective gear for specialists to wear to prevent infection. Special monitors would be placed for specialists to watch what is happening while treating Ebola patients. By watching doctors and nurses treating these patients, they will come up with new ways to lessen infections. This is an important and deadly disease, and we need to be extra careful.