Dallas hospital refutes nurses' allegation of haphazard Ebola protocols

Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas have countered allegations from a nurses’ union that sloppy protocols were used in dealing with Ebola at the facility, where Thomas Eric Duncan — the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States — died last week. The hospital said Thursday the union’s assertions "do not reflect actual facts."  

The development comes as the U.S. government seeks to ramp up its response to the Ebola crisis after two Dallas nurses also became ill, the second of whom had been cleared to travel on a commercial flight a day before her diagnosis, it has been disclosed. 

While Ebola patients are not considered contagious until they have symptoms and only two people are known to have contracted the disease in the U.S., the latest revelations about the handling of the situation have raised alarms about whether hospitals and the public health system are equipped to handle the deadly disease.

Among the allegations made by National Nurses United (NNU), the largest U.S. nurses’ union, were that Duncan was kept in a non-isolated area of the emergency department for several hours; that Ebola preparations amounted to little more than an optional seminar; and that some staffers at the hospital did not have proper equipment to handle infected patients. 

But the hospital fired back, saying those “assertions do not reflect actual facts.” Spokeswoman Candace White said in a statement that the hospital took steps in line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. The hospital said that specimens taken from Duncan — who was prescribed antibiotics and sent home the first time he went to the facility — were triple-bagged, placed in a closed transport container and hand-carried to the lab during his second visit. In normal cases, such items are usually moved through the hospital’s pneumatic tube system, which uses compressed air to transfer specimens to its laboratory. 

The hospital also said that it went “above and beyond the CDC recommendations” in dealing with hazardous waste, which the nurses union had alleged was allowed to pile up to the ceiling.

Nevertheless, Daniel Varga, the chief clinical officer and senior vice president of Texas Health Resources, which runs Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, admitted mistakes were made. 

"Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr. Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly skilled medical team, we made mistakes,” Varga said during a hearing of the oversight subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry."

Separately, the hospital said in a statement Thursday that it was making rooms available on a voluntary basis to employees who treated Duncan and are currently being monitored for symptoms of Ebola. It said the offer was made for employees’ “peace of mind,” and was intended for those who want to “avoid even the remote possibility of any potential exposure to family, friends and the broader public.”

On Wednesday, 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson, the second Dallas nurse diagnosed with Ebola, was transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Emory and three other U.S. hospitals have specialized isolation units to care for Ebola with less risk of spread to health care workers. 

Vinson was closely monitored after Nina Pham, another health care worker involved in Duncan's care, was diagnosed with Ebola last weekend. 

But a CDC official cleared Vinson to board a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to the Dallas area after she reported her temperature was 99.5 degrees — below the 100.4-degree threshold set by the CDC to determine if someone could be showing signs of Ebola — according to David Daigle, a spokesman for the agency. Vinson was diagnosed with Ebola a day after the flight.

Pham, meanwhile, has been scheduled to be moved to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, which houses one of four bio-containment units in the United States. Texas Health officials said Wednesday that Pham was in good condition. It wasn't immediately clear why she's being moved.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday directed his administration to respond in a "much more aggressive way" to the Dallas cases, and to ensure that the lessons learned there are transmitted to hospitals and clinics across the country. 

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response said on Thursday it would meet the challenge by providing $5.8 million in funding to help develop an experimental Ebola vaccine through a one-year contract with Maryland firm Profectus BioSciences Inc.

As Obama sought to calm fears about Ebola in the U.S., he cautioned against letting domestic cases overshadow the far more urgent crisis unfolding in West Africa, where the virus has struck the hardest.

The Ebola death toll in West Africa will rise to more than 4,500 people by the end of this week, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, director of the World Health Organization's global capacities alert and response team, said Thursday.

Nuttall also said new numbers show the outbreak is still hitting health workers hard, with 2,700 infected and 236 dead. She added that the focus of the world's efforts to curb Ebola’s spread should remain on the three West African countries hit hardest: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"Our data shows that cases are doubling every four weeks. The disease is still widespread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and there is persistent transmission of the virus," Nuttall told a news conference in Geneva.

CDC Director Tom Frieden reiterated Thursday the need to “stop it (Ebola) at the source,” adding that if the virus is allowed to spread more wildly in West Africa, it could pose an even bigger threat to the United States.

U.S. Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner, have stepped up calls for travel bans or visa suspensions from West Africa, and have urged the Obama administration to take other measures to secure the transportation system.

Al Jazeera and wire services