By Bill Parry
Elected officials at the city, state and federal levels are urging calm in the face of increased tension since the Ebola virus reached U.S. soil with the sole case in Dallas of a Liberian man who died Wednesday. Mayor de Blasio said Monday that he was “very confident” in the city’s preparation for an outbreak of the virus.
“We are very blessed in New York City to have the strongest public health apparatus in the country,” de Blasio said. “I feel very bad for what happened in Texas, but I can safely say that we have a much more aggressive and coherent game plan.”
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “The federal government, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has done good work thus far, but more common sense at our airports, ports and hospitals should be taken to tighten up protections against the deadly virus’s spread in the United States.”
Tougher screening procedures for the Ebola virus at all U.S. airports will be instituted within days, according to Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control. He added that the CDC has quarantine stations at major airports around the country which can detain passengers who show signs of Ebola while aboard inbound flights.
John F. Kennedy International Airport has one of the CDC’s quarantine stations. The U.S. government said it will start enhanced screening of passengers arriving from West Africa at Kennedy Saturday and then four other U.S. airports.
Jamaica Hospital, the closest to JFK, is working closely with the CDC and the city Department of Health in case the spread of Ebola reaches New York.
“All patients with signs consistent with Ebola will be properly screened, isolated and treated,” said Jamaica Hospital spokesman Michael Hinck, who pointed out the hospital has ongoing exercises to train the staff so they all can recognize the symptoms of the contagious disease.
The city Health and Hospitals Corporation, which oversees two hospitals in Queens Elmhurst Hospital Center and Queens Hospital Center — has also been training their staffs on CDC guidelines. As of earlier this week 24 people had been placed in isolation at some of the 11 city hospitals, although none had Ebola — just other illnesses with similar early stage symptoms like malaria.
Early identification of the signs is the key to fighting the spread of Ebola, Dr. Ross Wilson, HHC’s chief medical officer, told the Wall Street Journal. “If a patient does not get identified early on, you have what happened in Dallas,” he said referring to the case of Thomas Eric Duncan, who died. “The first thing is that you get more people in the community in contact with Ebola. The second thing is that you can increase the risk to health-care workers.”
At all 11 city hospitals, the HHC is conducting test-patient drills where an employees acts as a patient who recently traveled to West Africa and returns with symptoms. The fake patients enter the emergency room complaining of fever, headaches and abdominal pain. A nurse asks the patient a series of questions and if the patient answers yes, emergency protocols are implemented. Health-care workers would immediately don protective equipment as the patient is put into isolation.
Following each drill there is a complete debriefing followed by regular discussions behind the scenes.
“The response to the training has been very positive,”Wilson said. “ We’re getting it right with pretty much every step,”
If HHC determines that a patient tests positive for the Ebola virus, that patient would immediately be transported to Bellvue Hospital, which has upgraded its isolation rooms and is in the process of building a separate laboratory dedicated exclusively to Ebola cases, should any present themselves. Wilson believes it is unlikely any of the city hospitals will get an Ebola case and he finds it extremely unlikely that there will be an uncontrolled breakout in the United States because the health-care system is better prepared than in West Africa where the mortality rate is at 50 percent to 70 percent.
At New York Hospital Queens in Flushing, the staffs are going through the same preparedness drills using CDC checklists.
“This is not a new thing for us,” said Dr. Sorana Segal-Maurer, the director of the hospital’s Division of Infectious Diseases. “We have equipment laid out in an easily accessible setting and we have doctors and nurses on alert. When it comes to any of these public health threats, what you want is uniformity. You want everyone marching in step with the same protocol and make sure you screen everyone.”
At North Shore-LIJ, emergency medical physician Dr. Jason D’Amore said that after Sept. 11, emergency rooms across the country have been better prepared for public health crises.
“We’ve had increased awareness and increased surveillance and are ready at almost all times for mass casualty incidents, attacks that might require a significant amount of decontamination, the increased risk of biological agents,” he said. “People should feel comforted by that fact.”
TimesLedger reporters Alex Robinson, Juan Soto and Sarina Trangle contributed to this story.
