Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, a licensed emergency medical technician of 30-years, has issued the following statement regarding Ebola safety and treatment protocols for front-line medical staff:
“Last week, two nurses in Texas tested positive with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the Texas man who died from Ebola on October 8th.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, Ebola is not an airborne disease. The risk to the general public is extremely low. However, because Ebola is transmitted only through direct contact with the blood or bodily fluid of an infected person, healthcare workers are the most at risk for contracting the virus.
Since the outbreak of the Ebola virus began making international news, health care officials across the country have been calling for adequate training to identify and treat patients with Ebola and preparation and guidelines on proper safety protocols to protect health care workers from being infected with the disease. As we have seen in Dallas, we are woefully unprepared.
I have been an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in the San Gabriel Valley for over 30 years. My career as an EMT is my passion. I still regularly work in the field when I am not in Sacramento. And, as a working EMT, I do not feel prepared to appropriately respond to an emergency call involving someone who may be infected with Ebola.
When a patient falls ill, their first encounter with a medical professional is usually outside of a hospital with a primary care physician, an urgent care doctor, a nurse, an intake worker or an emergency medical responder. These front-line medical personnel are the ones who will see these patients first and they need proper training to identify potential Ebola cases and what precautions to take if they believe someone is infected.
National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country, said recently that over 80 percent of nurses surveyed reported that they have not been given adequate training on Ebola. There needs to be clear and consistent guidelines and training on how to deal with someone who may have contracted Ebola so that we know how to protect ourselves, the public and the patient.
Governor Brown’s administration has taken the necessary first step of convening a working group of state agencies and departments to address this issue and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (CalOSHA) issued interim guidelines to hospital staff. The goal of the working group is to develop statewide Ebola response policies and procedures. I strongly encourage them to continue outreach to health care professionals to collaboratively address deficiencies in guidelines that affect front-line staff. The members of the working group must be proactive and have policies and procedures in place sooner, rather than later.
The World Health Organization recently reported that in Sierra Leone, 427 health care workers are known to have been infected with Ebola as of October 12th. Of these workers, 236 have died. Exhaustive efforts are ongoing to ensure treatment facilities have access to protective equipment and are provided with training and relevant guidelines to reduce the risk of exposure. It is evident that, with the rate at which Ebola is spreading in West Africa, a fast and vigorous response is required.
We all hope that a case of Ebola will never come to California, but we want to make sure that policies, guidelines and training are comprehensive, understood and practiced before they are needed.
The time for us to act is now!”