A top nursing union official told a House panel on Friday that the federal government has failed to implement sufficient standards to protect nurses from Ebola, leaving healthcare workers nationwide vulnerable to the virus.
Deborah Burger, co president of National Nurses United, called on President Obama and Congress to mandate “uniform, optimal national standards” at hospitals to protect nurses from Ebola. Such protections include full-body hazmat suits, special purifying respirators and other measures.
Burger, while testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, suggested that two nurses who recently contracted Ebola while treating a patient in Dallas may have avoided infection if federal rules had required hospitals to mandate the nurses wear better protective gear.
The nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, initially wore permeable gowns, gloves with no taping around the wrists and surgical masks that left their necks exposed — gear Burger said wasn’t enough to prevent them from getting the virus.
“This is what happens when guidelines are inefficient and voluntary,” she said.
Pham was declared Ebola-free on Friday and was released from the National Institutes of Health hospital where she was treated.
Hospitals have been reluctant to increase Ebola safety measures on their own without specific directives from federal authorities, she said.
“The response to Ebola from U.S. hospitals and governmental agencies has been dangerously inconsistent and inadequate,” she said. “The lack of mandates and shifting guidelines from agencies and reliance on voluntary compliance has left caregivers uncertain, severely unprepared and vulnerable to infection.”
Burger said new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines have helped improved safety standards for nurses but that they’re not enough.
“The CDC guidelines are still unclear on the most effective protective equipment specifically allowing hospitals to select protective equipment based on availability and other factors,” she said.
Burger said a comprehensive nationwide survey of nurses conducted by her union found that 85 percent of respondents say they aren’t adequately trained to treat Ebola patients, and 68 percent say their hospital hasn’t communicated any policy for admission of a potential Ebola patient.
The survey also found that 44 percent of U.S. nurses say their hospitals lack insufficient supplies of eye protection, 46 percent say there are insufficient supplies of fluid-resistant, impermeable gowns, and 41 percent say their hospitals don’t have plans to equip isolation rooms.
“No nation would ever contemplate sending soldiers into the battlefield without armor and weapons,” Burger said. “Give us the tools we need. All we ask from President Obama and Congress is not one more infected nurse.”
