WASHINGTON — The possibility of an Ebola flight ban came up Monday night during a live ABC7/NewsChannel 8 Town Hall called “Ebola in America.”
The panelists took questions, many of which were submitted through social media.
“The person who came in here who infected two nurses would not have come in here if we had that travel ban, so I think there’s something to be learned from that,” said retired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, who’s considering a GOP run for president in 2016.
Other panelists said such a flight ban would discourage U.S. health care workers from traveling to Africa to fight the Ebola outbreak there.
“I think a mandatory [travel ban] would do that,” said former Maryland Health Secretary Nelson Sabatini.
The panel also discussed the readiness of hospitals to handle Ebola patients.
“Nurses across the country are not adequately prepared, and the issue with that is that we really need to have the proper equipment in place and interactive training. And what would help with that is having a national mandate from either Congress or the President … so that all nurses across the country have optimal standards and protective equipment,” said registered nurse Rajani Ward, with the group National Nurses United.
Dr. Scott Betzelos, chief medical officer at Inova Fairfax Hospitals, said they’ve come up with a four-stage training process.
“We have a four-camera simulator that can actually see all angles. So what we’re doing is actually going to video the doffing, that’s when you take off the PPE (personal protective equipment), the high-risk part, and look for any breaches. And then we’re also going to use our simulation center to put nurses and techs and doctors in the PPE, and then let them try and practice medicine on a simulation man,” he said. “Once you’re in these suits, your pulse rate goes up; your respirations go up; you get nervous; your hands shake, and it’s a completely different atmosphere … environment that you’re practicing in.”
“Not every hospital in this country should expend the resources necessary to care for an Ebola patient,” Sabatini said. “But at the same token, you never know when an Ebola patient is going to walk into the door of that ER in some small rural hospital.”
Could Ebola become an airborne virus? Dr. Betzelos tackled the question.
“Any virus can mutate in time. So, can it happen? Yes. Has it happened? There’s no documented evidence of an airborne recipient of Ebola,” he said.
“I am very frightened that we’re not going to take it seriously enough in Africa,” Dr. Carson added. “This is where I’m really concerned, because if it continues to increase there, goes across the continent and gets into the Middle East, where the hygiene issues and the crowding is quite a problem, I could see a lot of bad things happening. So we really need to concentrate our efforts on stamping it out fairly quickly, and working on the vaccine.”
Several panelists mentioned that differences in statements about and approaches toward the virus in the U.S. are fueling public confusion and fear.
“The thing that troubles me most about what’s going on, is that there is no single voice from the public policy makers. I mean, we need a surgeon general desperately,” said Sabatini.
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