A nurse from Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medial Center has reported that she and a host of nurses at her hospital and throughout California are still not prepared to handle the Ebola virus. She also pointed to the questionability of the equipment being used in her facility should a patient infected with the deadly hemorrhagic disease arrive for treatment.
“We need to practice drills that are not just something you learn via video or training session.” Diane McClure said in an interview with local Fox News affiliate in Sacramento Fox40. “They should have gotten on the ball and started that education and training and getting the proper equipment right away” after an Ebola scare at her hospital in August, she said (one that turned out to be a false alarm). “We need to have proper equipment in place and proper training in place in order to do that,” she added.
McClure and a group of nurses from the California Nurses Association are meeting with Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday to discuss ways to “get everyone on the same page.” She pointed to Kaiser’s large bank roll noting that financing for Ebola training and equipment should not be an issue for the hospital.
However, Kaiser refuted the nurse’s claims. According to the Director of Kaiser Hospital Operations and Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Stephen, McClure’s claims of no training are false, notes Fox40.
Kaiser Permanente is in the process of renegotiating its contract with the California Nurses Association.
Kaiser told Fox40 that it already had Ebola identification and isolation guidelines in place in August when the Ebola scare in Sacramento took place and that every medical center has been training Ebola response teams in addition to providing lectures, printed materials, videos and training sessions for staff.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.