On Friday, Governor Jerry Brown said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that as California takes steps to prepare for the possibility of Ebola’s arrival, the state should avoid making the same mistakes that were made in Texas.
The Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas, where the first Ebola victim in America, Thomas Eric Duncan (a Liberian national), died recently, is a private hospital.
On Thursday, Dr. Daniel Varga, Chief Clinical Officer and Senior Vice President of the Texas Health Resources network, apologized for the mistakes the hospital made. “We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry,” Varga said. Duncan passed away on October 8.
Two nurses have since been confirmed as being infected with the virus. They contracted Ebola while they were treating Duncan. Improper training is believed to be a main function of how they contracted the deadly disease.
Brown has reportedly met with public health officials and nurses to devise guidelines and protocols that hospitals should follow in case an Ebola victim does surface in the Golden State. “‘I’m going to meet with different groups [and] hospitals” about taking aggressive moves in California to keep the disease in check'” Brown said to the Chronicle. “We’ve got work to do,” He said noting that “it’s a fast-moving story.”
California nurses have expressed their “deep concern” regarding the news of the Texas nurses becoming infected. They said that that they were worried about the protocols outlined in the “interim guidance book on Ebola” provided by Cal/OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) saying it consists of the same guidelines that were in place in Dallas and did not prevent the spread of the infection, notes the Chronicle.
RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of National Nurses United, told the Chronicle that she had spoken with Brown. “He reached out to me, we’re talking, and I’m convinced that Jerry will be doing the right thing.”
On Friday, Texas Governor Rick Perry announced that he supports a travel ban to and from the West African nations that have been ravaged by Ebola in order to protect the spread to the United States and beyond.