<p>Agreed, Nrdsb. The hospital has been ducking very low since retracting their first explanation. They will have talked to the doctor(s) involved in releasing him, and discovered that he/she/they simply blew it.</p>
<p>They already have a sympathetic judge. He’s the guy that found them a nice quarantine house. They win.</p>
<p>^^^Just in case you are being facetious, I’ll state that I imagine he would be disqualified from hearing any case involving the participants.</p>
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<p>Especially so if it all started with his deception and lying on the airport form, then he is at fault for any harm that follows.</p>
<p>In order for the family to win a suit against the hospital, they’d have to prove that but for releasing him the first time from the ER he would have survived. For a disease with a 60 to 90% fatality rate, that will be impossible. </p>
<p>My point is, from the limited details we have thus far, I don’t believe his “family” in Dallas has the moral right to sue. More will undoubtedly be revealed later, but in my opinion only his mother and offspring should be in line at the court house.</p>
<p>Of course it seems that morality seldom prevails in court rooms when big $$ is at stake.</p>
<p>I’ve thought long and hard about this situation. I don’t work for PHD, but I am intimately acquainted with it. I know many nurses, staff, and administrators who work there. I had my children there. Even now, I do some occasional contract work in the professional buildings which are part of the hospital. As a nurse, I’m well aware of what can happen if there is insufficient staffing, excessive stress, complacency, and denial. </p>
<p>I’ve had emotions which have ranged from feeling gutted for the people who work at this hospital, (because I know how HARD they work, and how dedicated and conscientious most of them are-and that goes from patient care aides all the way up to the top of the chain) to feeling very, very, and I mean VERY angry. </p>
<p>The lesson to be learned from the initial mistake doesn’t require a rocket scientist. There was a multi factoral fail here which, if we can believe what we’ve been told, started with a nurse who DID ask the question, but failed to make the answer a priority, and ended with a doctor or doctors who did not bother to access the triage nurse notes (and I don’t believe for a second they were not accessible), trusting in his or her own assessment skills. The doc either didn’t ask the proper questions, or he chose to deny their implications. I don’t necessarily need to know specifically where they went wrong to know that someone just flat BLEW IT. </p>
<p>I’m angry because those individuals have put a black eye on the years of efforts of many dedicated professionals. They have endangered individuals, and they have endangered our community. The CDC has given health professionals the proper tools to be the best first responders possible, but those directions and guidelines must be followed to a T to be effective. IT’S NOT THAT HARD TO DO.</p>
<p>So I’m both devastated for them, and livid at what the inactions of a very few people who should have known better have cost a lot of human beings.</p>
<p>What to do now, though? I don’t think it serves any purpose for us as individuals to continue to harp on what went wrong that day. There really aren’t any grand lessons to be learned other than follow the very simple guidelines you’ve been given, and I do think this has served as a very big wake up call to ERs everywhere in this country. Nobody wants to be the next person to screw up in this manner. The individuals involved will be punished internally at the hospital, as well as possibly by their licensing boards and probably repeatedly when the lawsuits ensue. </p>
<p>In short, I see no purpose in sitting around every day thinking up a new name to call the triage nurse and the doc(s) on duty that day. The system will go to work on them, and we now need to look ahead and figure out “What NOW?”</p>
<p>JMHO. </p>
<p>And I feel sick inside that the patient died. I had really high hopes for his recovery and feel so bad that he has lost his life and that his family and friends who are now at risk cannot at least be comforted with the thought that a cure was possible and achieved. </p>
<p>This lawsuit talk is depressing after we the tax payers spent about half a million dollars to care someone who would have been likely not treated at all in Liberia. To cheer up, I am posting the good nes the spanish dog may be saved!</p>
<p><a href=“Save Excalibur! Pet Lovers Unite to Protect Ebola Patient's Dog”>http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/save-excalibur-pet-lovers-unite-protect-ebola-patients-dog-n220846</a></p>
<p>He didn’t die because the hospital messed up - he might have had a better chance at living had they not messed up. Had he not come here carrying a disease with the intent to overstay his tourist visa he WOULD have died. I feel like they should be glad that he at least was given a fighting chance. </p>
<p>^^^Well, I certainly didn’t say he died because they messed up. Had they followed every guideline correctly, he still could have died. That is not at all what my post is about.</p>
<p>@zooermom
</p>
<p>I agree, as does the Southcom commander :<a href=“http://news.usni.org/2014/10/07/southcom-commander-ebola-outbreak-central-america-haiti-nightmare-scenario”>http://news.usni.org/2014/10/07/southcom-commander-ebola-outbreak-central-america-haiti-nightmare-scenario</a></p>
<p>Maybe just maybe we can get over the politicalization of our porous border policy before we have a big big problem</p>
<p>Judge Clay Jenkins is not the type of judge that hears lawsuits. He is, in essence, a county commissioner. The entity is called the County Commissioner’s Court, so the commissioners are called judges. (I do think they have something to do with deciding condemnation cases [e…g. where the city wants to take land to widen a road.])</p>
<p>Nrdsb, I’m not a medical professional, but I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals the last few years. My impression as patient’s family is that there are far too few people for the amount of work that needs to be done. Doctors, nurses, administrative people, even aides, often give the (unspoken) impression that they’re hurrying through their encounter with us so that they can rush on to the next patient. And on the other side, we have to wait for very long amounts of time for our turn at some brief facetime with a doc or nurse. </p>
<p>How many medical mistakes, like the Ebola mistake in Dallas, do you think are due to medical professionals being stretched to cover too many patients at one time, and therefore perhaps missing details, like travel to Liberia, or not taking the time to check nurses’ notes if it doesn’t seem necessary, especially if checking those notes requires the step of going into another different system?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/08/patient-frisco-ebola-suspect/16922477/”>http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/08/patient-frisco-ebola-suspect/16922477/</a></p>
<p>Great X_X </p>
<p>Is this another Ebola patient? Went to a Frisco TX, “CareNow” which I’m assuming is an Urgent Care. Claims he was in contact with the now deceased Duncan.</p>
<p>I think that employees at any workplace fall into a bell curve…a few horrible, a few wonderful, and the majority in varying degrees of average…I think that is the case for lawyers and bus drivers and corporate CEOs and social workers and teachers and cashiers and heath care professionals. Yes, some people do more with less, people in many professions are stretched thin, but even within those confines, some employees never make mistakes, some make lots of mistakes, and most of us try to do our best but mess up on occasion.</p>
<p>True, missypie, but IMO understaffing is a really bad business model for a hospital. The more people are rushed, the more mistakes they’re going to make, even the good ones.</p>
<p>@TatinG Police have sealed off the CareNow in Frisco. Meanwhile, the patient is in the ambulance being transported to the hospital with news choppers overhead. Reports are saying that he was in West Africa and had contact with Duncan and is exhibiting signs of Ebola. A press conference is expected shortly.</p>
<p>Oops :-)</p>
<p>So, typical of the way news gets disseminated, now our local news says the patient who claimed to be a contact of Mr. Duncan was in fact not connected to him, but is somehow connected to one of the deputies who entered the apartment before it was decontaminated.</p>
<p>So I will not jump to any conclusions. There is supposedly a press conference at 3:30 which will address the issue.</p>
<p>Now sources are telling local news outlets that the Frisco patient may be a Dallas Co Sheriffs Deputy who was in the apartment. Authorities say he is not one of the people previously identified as contacts. He felt sick and walked into the clinic. They have his name so it looks like it is a deputy who was in the Ebola apartment.Of course, he could just have the flu. Let’s hope</p>