Portside

OAKLAND -- They stood together in bright red T-shirts, holding placards and signs. They stood together in sorrow, and in anger. But mostly, nurses from throughout California stood together Sunday as a symbol of warning.

The nation's hospitals aren't ready for an Ebola outbreak, a representative for the country's largest nurses union said, nor are they prepared to protect the people who may be called to fight it on the front lines.

"What is really important to note," Bonnie Castillo said during a gathering of nurses in Oakland, "is that the guidelines the Center for Disease Control want us to follow are insufficient and inadequate. We have to get those things corrected."

Castillo, the director of the crisis-based Registered Nurses Response Network, and other National Nurses United members relayed that message in front of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on West MacArthur Boulevard, hours after health officials confirmed a nurse in Texas became the first person inside the United States to contract the deadly virus. The nurse wore protective gear while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of Ebola on Oct. 8, after contracting the virus in Liberia and traveling to the United States.

The nurse was in stable condition Sunday afternoon, according to Texas health officials.
Just how that nurse contracted the virus is being investigated, but union members hinted it was inevitable, considering the relative lack of training nurses have received. They also objected to news reports citing a "breach in protocol" by the nurse in Texas.

"We're seeing that caregivers who are not being adequately trained are being blamed," said Katy Roemer, a registered nurse for more than 20 years who works at Kaiser. "We're hearing they did not follow proper protocol, when we've been asking our hospitals throughout the country to provide us with training that allows us to ask questions, with training about how to put on (and take off) the proper and optimal personal safety equipment. ... And we've seen that hospitals are not giving us this information. That's not going to work."

The union said hundreds of nurses are expected to join a national discussion Wednesday that will address hospital preparations for Ebola, and the training nurses are receiving. So far, they say, the data received in the union's survey of more than 1,900 registered nurses at more than 750 hospitals in 46 states and the District of Columbia wasn't encouraging.

According to the NNU:

85 percent of nurses surveyed report that their hospital has not provided education on Ebola with the ability for the nurses to interact and ask questions.

76 percent of the nurses report their hospital has not communicated with them an official policy regarding potential admission of Ebola patients.

39 percent said their hospital does not plan to equip isolation rooms with plastic-covered mattresses and pillows and to discard all linens after use. Only 8 percent said they were aware their hospital did have such a plan in place.

37 percent of nurses said their hospital had insufficient supplies of eye protection or fluid resistant gowns.

"What we would really like to see implemented is a buddy system," said Deborah Burger, the co-president of the NNU and president of the California Nurses Association. "That could help monitor the movements of health care workers when they're providing care, that can help them deal with getting the safety equipment on and off to make sure that no health care worker is contaminated."

There is no time to wait, she said.

"We would like to see a plan put into place immediately," Burger said. "We need personnel to get trained, we need adequate supplies and rooms. We want adequate disposal of wastes.

"The thing people need to realize is this: This is a virus that we can stop from spreading," she said. "But time is urgent, and actions need to happen sooner rather than later."

Contact Rick Hurd at 925-945-4789 and follow him at Twitter.com/3rderh