Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

[Blue]

Without adequate PPE, maybe not.

http://allnurses.com/forums/f8/will-you-work-during-pandemic-258506.html

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

How about rewording the question.

Will nurses work with flu patients during a pandemic?

There is no need for nurses plastering a broken broken arm to wear ppe.

[aurora]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Yes, there is.

The patient with the broken arm could very well be infected and contageous but not yet showing signs of the disease.

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Screen the patient and see if it is likely they have been exposed.

[tropical]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

"Will nurses work with flu patients during a pandemic?"
See back in the news from Canada and the med. (nurse,...) staff working in the pand./outbreak event: a fine of 100.000 if you don't come to work!

See the health-care workers "memories" from SARS (p.flu is worst):


Some health-care workers still haunted by memories of SARS


<!-- END HEADLINE --><!-- BEGIN STORY BODY -->Tue Jan 9, 7:41 PM


By Sheryl Ubelacker

TORONTO (CP) - It may be almost four years since SARS began its deadly rampage through Toronto, but for many in the health-care field the memories remain all too vivid and its lessons have not been forgotten.

Paramedic Alicia Butler, who was hospitalized with SARS in May 2003 after transferring a patient no one knew was infected, still suffers lingering effects from the disease. She has asthma-like inflammation in her lungs, is unable to sleep properly because of apparent changes in her brain, and her fatigue means she is still working desk duty at Toronto's Emergency Medical Service.

"I was 22 when I got sick. I used to play hockey, play all kinds of sports and hang out with my friends," she said Tuesday. "It's been hard . . . The biggest thing for me is the fatigue levels."

"It's weird, too, because it's work. I got it from doing my job."

Butler agreed with Justice Archie Campbell's conclusion in his final SARS report released Tuesday that health workers of all stripes hadn't been properly protected from the contagion - even though authorities knew how deadly the virus could be.

"Our patient was symptomatic of SARS, but it was at a time when they said there was no more SARS in the city. It was right in that lull between SARS 1 and SARS 2," recalled Butler, 26. "When I was (later) tested with the mask I was wearing during that transfer I failed it in three seconds."

"It provided no protection whatever."

Linda Haslam-Stroud, president of the Ontario Nurses Association, lauded Campbell's report, and stressed that nurses were among those most affected by the epidemic.

"Two of our colleagues actually died and, in fact, many other of our colleagues are still off and have not returned to work as a result of the exposure to SARS," she said.

"It was the most devastating time for us as nurses because our priority was providing quality care to the patient. We were trying to provide it under these very difficult circumstances, with the right hand and the left hand not knowing what was going on."

"Then when we raised a red flag," she said, referring to the Scarborough Grace Hospital nurse who first suggested patients had symptoms of what later became known as SARS, "no one listened to us until it was too late."

"And I can tell you, we will never put ourselves in that situation again."

Dr. Alan Tallmeister, an anesthesiologist who came down with SARS after intubating a patient at Scarborough Grace Hospital in the first wave of the epidemic, recalled Tuesday that his attitude towards protecting himself and other hospital workers from infectious diseases has changed dramatically since the outbreak.

"As far as respiratory things go, we probably had a bit of a cavalier attitude that as long as you had the basic masks and stuff on and weren't exposed to anything long term, you're not likely to get it," Tallmeister said of pre-SARS days.

Today, he's far more cautious. "It brought to mind that hospitals basically are big concentration camps of bacteria and viruses."

"Now, if it's an elective case and they say: 'This patient has been vomiting for a few days or has a fever,' I say he's cancelled even before I see him. He won't do that well having surgery in that shape, but why should he come in and infect all the staff members? Not just SARS, but there are common flus, all kinds of gastro (infections)."

"I'm not getting involved and that's that."
Butler hopes to go back on ambulance duty in six months, but she is understandably nervous.
"There's so many infectious diseases out there," she said. "I know that when I do go back, it's going to be a little difficult for me to trust some of the equipment, just because I did get sick."
"I think the government should really pay attention to this report and listen to the health-care workers. And I also think, not to be completely negative, changes have been made . . . and we have to learn from the mistakes that were made."



<!-- END STORY BODY -->


<!-- END MAIN CONTENT --><!-- BEGIN FOOTER -->Copyright ? 2007 Canadian Press

[peggy]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

So many nurses already feel that they are undervalued and exploited. Add to that the memory of the fight to get hospitals to move to safer injectables. Cost was more important than safety for far too long. We may end up reaping what we have sown - nurses and other health care workers who refuse to be taken advantage of any more.

[aurora]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Screen the patient and see if it is likely they have been exposed.

Are you serious?

Would you screen a patient during seasonal flu and feel confident that you could risk your life based on whether the patient felt they had been exposed to seasonal flu - exposed to someone who didn't know they were sick?

If you don't mask up during a pandemic for every patient, you're not just risking your own health but the health of your fellow workers, your family, and the other patients you would expose to pandemic flu when you get infected.

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Must agree with Aurora here. We know people are going to appear perfectly fine but will still be spreading the virus for days prior to clinical symptoms appearing. Besides, what if the person wondered if he couldn't get his fracture fixed if he told the truth? I'm not a nurse but I would not dream of working in a clinic or hospital during a pandemic without personal protective gear even if I was fixing a broken finger.

[mixin]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

The nurse who gave me my flu shot yesterday said nurses will be among the first to get vaxed because they are the ones who will be working with the sick in a pandemic. Apparently she plans on nurses working. She said they all have an extra box of gloves in their cars. She didn't seem to know too much about masks.

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Are the nurses getting a pre-pan vax?

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Anne what vax? LOL The only existing vax (in the US at least) has been promised to the armed forces. And, it of course is a gamble as to its effectiveness. It will take several months for any new vaccines to be made and that can only happen after the onset of the pandemic.

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Is the US producing pre-pan vax?

[Blue]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

Is the US producing pre-pan vax?

For the national stockpile, and I do not think that this means nurses
will see it, and it's efficacy is suspicious. This is all there is:

From the CIDRAP articles, Part 2:

<snip>

But the best example of H5N1's poor immunogenicity is the 2006 trial that led to the first FDA licensing of an H5N1 vaccine.

Even at that dosage, only 54% or 58% of the subjects (by two different measures) exhibited antibody titers that matched FDA and CHMP regulations, compared with the 70% to 90% usually achieved with seasonal vaccine...

"There are numerous vaccines under development that are potentially better, if you will, than this vaccine. This is an interim vaccine,"

<snip>

[Blue]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

She said they all have an extra box of gloves in their cars. She didn't seem to know too much about masks.

Oh dear, I know that we are in trouble...

There are, of course, nurses that are more informed than this, but
they are not in charge of what is going to be happening in this country.

Wake up, America. The nurses are not going to sacrifice themselves.
They have families just like you do. If you do not think about protecting
them, then they can not help you when you need them.

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Will Nurses Work During a Pandemic?

For the national stockpile, and I do not think that this means nurses
will see it, and it's efficacy is suspicious. This is all there is:

From the CIDRAP articles, Part 2:

<snip>

But the best example of H5N1's poor immunogenicity is the 2006 trial that led to the first FDA licensing of an H5N1 vaccine.

Even at that dosage, only 54% or 58% of the subjects (by two different measures) exhibited antibody titers that matched FDA and CHMP regulations, compared with the 70% to 90% usually achieved with seasonal vaccine...

"There are numerous vaccines under development that are potentially better, if you will, than this vaccine. This is an interim vaccine,"

<snip>

Do you know how much is being produced?

When was production started?

Are any other pre-vaxs being trialled?

</snip></snip>