State health officials say they're stocking equipment, training more aggressively and mounting public information campaigns in response to a potential Ebola threat. State health officials say an Ebola outbreak is highly unlikely in Ohio but doctors, hospitals and state emergency officials are preparing just in case. At Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Doctor Jim O'Brien, says they've seen some people worried about Ebola visit the emergency room. But none was exposed to Ebola. "We have had some cases where there was initial suspicion but by following our process we were able to see very quickly that that shouldn't have been a concern to us," O'Brien says.
Doctor O'Brien says the chances of a Central Ohioan contracting Ebola is slim. Still, Riverside's parent, Ohio Health, and other hospital systems have been training staff since August on how to respond to a potential Ebola patient. First, O'Brien says he dealt with staff fears.
What I've been doing is I've been going out and talking to our front line staff, helping to let them expend the energy they have, the panic, the fear, so that we can actually get to rational thought and discourse.
Fears of Ebola are heightened because it arrived in the United States at a hospital in Dallas at the start of flu season. Brent Mulgrew, Executive Director of the Ohio State Medical Association says Ebola and Flu symptoms are similar so medical staffs have all been told to get a recent patient travel history when they have flu symptoms. "The symptons of Ebola are similar to a myriad of ailments which are going to be occurring now that flu season is here. "In fact, the truth of the matter is, for the majority of the people in this state who have not traveled to West Africa, who have not had direct contact with anyone from West Africa, if they have these symptons, more than likely they are going to have the flu." Fever and diarrhea are common complaints with any type of viral illness and especially the flu. Doctor O'Brien says as a result of the Ebola precautions nurses, doctors and health care aides are also more mindful of their protective clothing. "Current recommendations, despite what you sometimes see is not that you go to extraordinary lengths of wearing space suits or things like that," O'Brien says.
They're using the personal protective equipment that we use on a daily basis in providing care for patients. So we have that readily accessible.
The so-called 'space suit' protective gear is available on demand from the Ohio Department of Health. O'Brien says his staff is doing what he calls 'experiential training' or exercises to re-inforce prevention if a person with Ebola arrives at the hospital. "There are a number of materials out there including there's something called 'glowgerm' which is a powder that lights up under black light. And what you can do is put this on someone so that it's invisible to the naked eye and have them go through the process of taking off their protective equipment. And we've done this exercise with a couple of our folks and have them go through how they might do it normally."
While Riverside and other Ohio Hospitals prepare for a potential Ebola case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will send a team of doctors to any hospital in the United States where the deadly virus surfaces.