SCANDALOUS

Nurses: Hospital Botched Ebola Case

Flimsy gear and worse.

Nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas made scandalous accusations about how the facility treated the first Ebola case in the United States. On Tuesday, several anonymous nurses spoke to reporters in a conference call organized by National Nurses United, which does not represent them. The nurses said Thomas Eric Duncan languished for hours in a room with other patients upon arrival and that officials resisted isolating him. Nurses, like infected Nina Pham, allegedly had flimsy protective gear while dealing with his highly contagious blood, vomit, and feces. Duncan’s lab samples were sent through the hospital’s pneumatic tubes, which nurses say could’ve contaminated the entire system. CDC officials also admitted Tuesday that the Dallas hospital was learning on the fly how to take care of Duncan and deal with Ebola. CDC Director Thomas Frieden said rapid-response teams will not be dispatched to hospitals when they get their first cases. “I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed,” he said. “That might have prevented this infection.”