.
Did NY Ebola MD Act Irresponsibly? By Patricia Doyle |
| Ebola is now in my 'backyard' and like most in NY, I am
not happy about it. As the world knows, the ebola patient is a New
York ER doc who served with MSF in Guinea and came home a week ago on Oct
17th. The Doctor then went about his activities as though he had just come back from a beach holiday. He took the subway and rode in cabs, reportedly went to a restaurant, and even went bowling. A few hours after which, on Thursday morning, he calls MSF and reports a fever. Why did he call MSF and not NY health authorities? Seems odd. The doctor, Craig Spencer, lives on 147th street in Harlem and took a cab about 13 miles to Williamsburg, Brooklyn for his bowling outing. Seems strange that he traveled to Brooklyn to go bowling. You'd think upper Manhattan would have comparable bowling alleys. The very next morning the doctor becomes Ebola symptomatic. One might also think that because he reported being 'fatigued' after returning home (one of the first signs of Ebola) he would have been more conscientious about maintaining quarantine. It is alleged he went jogging and sweating AFTER he felt 'fatigue'. Too much about this case is strange and odd. Here is a DOCTOR who has seen the death and carnage from an Ebola outbreak and should logically be about the first person to exercise extreme caution upon returning home to NY. Would it be unreasonable for this doctor to wait 21 days before seeing his girlfriend, going bowling, riding in subways and taking cabs? No one can fault his humanitarian contributions in West Africa but how about exercising some of the same heroic behavior here at home? It's strange enough that an MD would come home from the outbreak and act so care-free but 4,000 American troops troops will likewise be coming home from West Africa, eventually. At least we hope they all will. I trust that the military does a better job of quarantining troops returning from Ebola countries than this medical professional has done. If you ask me, and no one is, but I will tell you anyway, the medical health profession should be getting failing grades on its efforts to quarantine after Ebola exposure. We have a nurse taking a plane to try on bridal gowns, a lab tech who handled Duncan's blood taking a cruise, and now a doctor who went bowling and took subways and cabs. Someone better teach America's medical pros a little more about Ebola and quarantine. The issue is not whether Dr. Spencer has or does not have Ebola, the issue is risk to OTHERS. He worked with Ebola patients in west Africa apparently leaving for Guinea on September 18 and returning on October 12 - about 4 weeks total. Common sense says he should have come home and stayed in his house and not taken part in social activities which required the use of subways and cabs. None of the people he came into close contact with were given any choice. The CDC or someone from his organization would have gladly provided him with food and necessities during the quarantine period. Something is just not right with this whole story. However, as I mentioned earlier, when he did show a temperature his first call was to MSF and not to the CDC or NY City Health Department. I find that strange, too. He seemed to not know what procedure to use when the fever of (reportedly) 100.3 showed up. I would think that MSF would have given clear guidelines and instructions to their medical personnel on how to conduct themselves upon returning home to non-infected countries. I sincerely hope the doctor recovers and that none of his contacts come down with it. However, to reiterate, I find it quite unsettling that he did not voluntarily maintaining a complete quarantine. 21 days out of a person's life is a grain of sand on the beach. If this type of behavior continues, mandated quarantine in a facility may be forthcoming thanks to those who refuse to keep a voluntary one. If I had been exposed to an Ebola patient I would certainly keep my quarantine and immediately call the CDC and Health Departments should the first sign of disease appear. I know that early treatment will help with survival. It is all common sense. I have observed that it appears incubation time and the time the virus takes to become eradicated seems to have shortened. This makes me wonder if the virus is TOTALLY eradicated from the Texas nurses or simply evading our testing medium. We may not be out of the woods in Texas. Time will tell. Remember Doctor Sacra who, after two weeks of treatment, was sent home to Mass as 'ebola free'. Not long after, he began to feel sick again and was hospitalized a second time. Ebola tests were negative for the virus and he was released and is now home. This virus mutates at an alarming rate and we need to be very vigilant. We still do not know much about the origin of this strain or how it infects so many. My guess is it is airborne as I've stated before. One news story reported that scientists have identified over 360 variants of this virus already. New York City at holiday time is a cauldron of people and germs flying in and flying out of town. We have Ebola here now and it just might stick around for the holidays. Thank you, Patty After First Ebola Case In NYC, 3 Others Quarantined NEW YORK (AP) — A doctor who became New York City's first Ebola patient was praised for getting treatment immediately upon showing symptoms, and health officials stressed that the nation's most populous city need not fear his wide-ranging travel in the days before his illness began. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged residents not to be alarmed by the doctor's diagnosis Thursday, even as they described him riding the subway, taking a cab and bowling since returning to New York from Guinea a week ago. De Blasio said all city officials followed "clear and strong" protocols in their handling and treatment of him. "We want to state at the outset that New Yorkers have no reason to be alarmed," de Blasio said. "New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk." The doctor, Craig Spencer, a member of Doctors Without Borders, reported Thursday morning coming down with a 103-degree fever and diarrhea. He was being treated in an isolation ward at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola center. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will do a further test to confirm the initial results, has dispatched an Ebola response team to New York. President Barack Obama spoke to Cuomo and de Blasio Thursday night and offered the federal government's support. He asked them to stay in close touch with Ron Klain, his "Ebola czar," and public health officials in Washington. Health officials have been tracing Spencer's contacts to identify anyone who may be at risk. The city's health commissioner, Mary Bassett, said Spencer's fiancee and two friends had been quarantined but showed no symptoms. Health officials say the chances of the average New Yorker contracting Ebola, which is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, are slim. Someone can't be infected just by being near someone who is sick with Ebola. Someone isn't contagious unless he is sick. Bassett said the probability was "close to nil" that Spencer's subway rides would pose a risk. Still, the bowling alley was closed as a precaution, and Spencer's Harlem apartment was cordoned off. The Department of Health was on site across the street from the apartment building Thursday night, giving out information to area residents. Still, the news rankled some New Yorkers. "Oh my gosh!" said Charles Kerr, 60, as his friends gathered on a Harlem sidewalk murmured. "This changes the situation. The guy must be coughing, sitting against people. Now you've got to think." Kerr said he wasn't afraid, but he wants a stricter approach to anyone coming from the Ebola-affected countries. "Stay in their apartment," he said. "Especially now, when it's so rampant. Especially if they know they've been in contact." The epidemic in West Africa has killed about 4,800 people. In the United States, the first person diagnosed with the disease was a Liberian man, who fell ill days after arriving in Dallas and later died, becoming the only fatality. None of his relatives who had contact with him got sick. Two nurses who treated him were infected and are hospitalized. The family of one nurse said doctors no longer could detect Ebola in her as of Tuesday evening. According to a rough timeline provided by city officials, in the days before Spencer fell ill, he went on a 3-mile jog, went to the High Line park, rode the subway and, on Wednesday night, got a taxi to a Brooklyn bowling alley. He felt tired starting Tuesday, and felt worse on Thursday when he and his fiancee made a joint call to authorities to detail his symptoms and his travels. EMTs in full Ebola gear arrived and took him to Bellevue in an ambulance surrounded by police squad cars. Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian organization, said per the guidelines it provides its staff members on their return from Ebola assignments, "the individual engaged in regular health monitoring and reported this development immediately." Travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone must report in with health officials daily and take their temperature twice a day, as Spencer did. He also limited his direct contact with people, health officials said. Spencer, 33, works at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. He had not seen any patients or been to the hospital since his return, the hospital said in a statement, calling him a "dedicated humanitarian" who "went to an area of medical crisis to help a desperately underserved population." Four American aid workers, including three doctors, were infected with Ebola while working in Africa and were transferred to the U.S. for treatment in recent months. All recovered. Health care workers are vulnerable because of close contact with patients when they are their sickest and most contagious. In West Africa this year, more than 440 health workers have contracted Ebola and about half have died. But the Ebola virus is not very hardy. The CDC says bleach and other hospital disinfectants kill it. Dried virus on surfaces survives only for several hours. Spencer is from Michigan and attended Wayne State University School of Medicine and Columbia's University Mailman School of Public Health. According to his Facebook page, he left for West Africa via Brussels last month. A photo shows him in full protective gear. He returned to Brussels Oct. 16. "Off to Guinea with Doctors Without Borders," he wrote. "Please support organizations that are sending support or personnel to West Africa, and help combat one of the worst public health and humanitarian disasters in recent history." ___ Associated Press writers Frank Eltman, Cara Anna, Cameron Young, Jake Pearson, Deepti Hajela and Tom Hays and researcher Susan James contributed to this report. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/after-1st-ebola-case-in-nyc-3-others-quarantined/ar-BBaRCXj |
| Donate
to Rense.com
Support Free And Honest
Journalism At Rense.com |
Subscribe
To RenseRadio!
Enormous Online Archives,
MP3s, Streaming Audio Files,
Highest Quality Live Programs |