Texas' biggest hospital chain still preparing for Ebola
Nurse: ‘They should have started this months ago and they know it’
DALLAS – The CDC has repeatedly said any hospital in the country can safely care for an Ebola patient, but the largest health care system in Texas told Yahoo News on Friday that only two of its 46 hospitals statewide are ready to treat someone with the deadly virus.
Dr. Bob Pryor, Baylor Scott & White Health’s chief operating officer, made the revelation when asked about Ebola training currently underway at Baylor Medical Center in Irving, just miles from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
“So what we would do is we would transfer that patient to one of our facilities that have the adequate capability and capacity,” Pryor said. For now, he said, that means the system’s flagship hospitals in downtown Dallas and in the central Texas town of Temple.
In a company email sent this week, Baylor Irving safety manager Joshua Ball told supervisors that the facility’s annual “Safety Day” scheduled for Thursday and Friday would be canceled “to do hands on PPE (personal protective equipment) education” and get Ebola updates.
“Please ensure that your staff are notified of this change,” Ball writes in the email. “Sorry for the short notice and thank you for your understanding.”
When asked by Yahoo News on Friday if hospital employees had received Ebola training prior to Thursday, Ball turned down an opportunity to shed light on the facility's preparation.
“I’m not going to be answering any of those questions,” Ball said.
Pryor, who is also the chain’s chief medical officer, said its health care workers were skilled in general infectious control procedures which were “consistent with the protocols at the time.”
But Pryor said Baylor quickly adopted new standards after watching the crisis unfold at nearby Texas Health Presbyterian, which saw one Ebola patient die and two of its nurses contract the virus this month.
“Before we had a patient who was exposed to modern medicine here in the United States, our understanding of how to protect staff from Ebola patients was our many years of history in Africa,” Pryor said. “It has caused us to look at how we want to protect our staff. We are in the process of training our staff in a different technique including the types of suits that you see when you see the patients transferred on TV.”
Yahoo News obtained the email about the training from a nurse who works at the hospital. She asked not to be identified because she is not authorized to speak for the company.
The veteran caregiver said she is blowing a whistle because she wants it known that Texas Health Presbyterian may not be the only hospital vulnerable to problems handling the incredibly infectious virus.
“All hospitals are scrambling to cram-prepare as we speak, and it’s no surprise we’re not ready,” the nurse told Yahoo News. “They should have started this months ago and they know it.”
Federal health officials issued an alert to all hospitals Aug. 1 advising them on how to safely diagnose and manage a suspected Ebola patient. Many of those CDC guidelines have since come under intense scrutiny.
“Right now we are training and re-training and making sure that every [caregiver] is highly competent,” said Pryor, adding that no Baylor facility has had an Ebola case.
The Baylor Irving nurse told Yahoo News that she has repeatedly inquired about Ebola training since early August.
“I asked about training this week and was referred to a website link,” she said.
[Related: Feds could have done more in Dallas Ebola case, CDC director says]
Thomas Duncan, the first person to ever be diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the U.S., died Oct. 8 after 10 days in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian. Since then, two of his nurses — Nina Pham, 26, and Amber Vinson, 29 — have also tested positive. More than 70 medical staffers who were involved in Duncan’s care are now being monitored for symptoms.
Officials haven’t determined how Pham and Vinson became infected, but their cases have prompted colleagues to make allegations that the hospital wasn’t properly trained or equipped.
“This is an anxious time,” Cindy Zolnierek, executive director of the Texas Nurses Association, wrote in a letter to association members this week. “Nurses who have such concerns have an obligation to raise those concerns at the time, all the way to the chief nursing officer if necessary. We expect hospitals to provide effective training and equipment.”
In Washington on Thursday, members of a House subcommittee spent hours grilling the nation’s health leaders and a Texas Health Presbyterian executive about the troubled handling of Ebola cases in Dallas.
Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, asked whether there had been real training on the job for Texas Health Presbyterian workers before Duncan arrived in late September.
“No,” said Dr. Daniel Varga, the hospital’s chief clinical officer.
Duncan, a Liberian citizen coming to Texas from West Africa, arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Sept. 20. Vinson, one of two nurses who became infected with Ebola while treating Duncan, flew in and out of the airport last weekend before she was diagnosed.
Baylor Irving is nine miles east of the airport. Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine is eight miles west of the airport. Pryor said training with new specialized equipment is underway at both locations.
“What if a person flew in with nausea and vomiting? They’d be sent to our unit,” the nurse from Baylor Irving said.
On Capitol Hill, DeGette urged federal officials to ramp up training for health care workers and to guarantee “more robust protective gear” is available early on in hospitals.
“It would be an understatement to say that the response to the first U.S.-based patient with Ebola was mismanaged,” DeGette said.
The nurse who contacted Yahoo News said she faults the CDC for not evacuating Duncan to one of the four hospitals that have safely treated Ebola patients in the United States. Those facilities have biocontainment units and staff that are “well-trained and know what they are getting in to,” she said.
“Trial and error is no way to treat Ebola, is it?” she said.
