Ebola is here, Dallas, Texas

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as a structural engineer I've investigated live sewer pipes (100 year old brick sewers, walking through with boots and a hard hat), looked at building facades (working on a swing stage 10+ stories high), worked in bucket trucks and basket lifts). Been to nuclear facilities, etc. permit-only confined spaces (in a 7ft diameter penstock with only the downstream gate between me and the river). Inside pipe where they're doing fiberglass overlays (the resins and volatile off-gasses aren't the most conducive to good health). There are a LOT of occupations that have some pretty serious safety and health risks. Try working with fiberglass on a daily basis or at anything dealing with aggregate like a mine/rock crusher (silicosis).

 
I have only had to listen the stories but I would wager that most people on this board wouldn't make it past lunch time having to do the things that most nurse do every day.. I know I wouldn't....

Thursday the wife had to use a lift they put in the rooms so they don't have to pick people up and while the guy was in the lift he sprayed they entire room with "a lot" of diarrhea....

 
there's a difference between "health and safety hazard" and "majorly disgusting health and safety hazard".

I certainly hope the diarrhea explosion isn't a daily (or even a remotely regular) occurrence. Time to wrap that guy in a shower curtain, hoist him over a tub or out a window and hit him with a fire hose.

I readily admit that I wouldn't last in a hospital environment or nursing home dealing with folks "bodily issues".

 
Sadly it’s about a weekly occurrence..

But the example is that bodily fluids is the main way to transmit those types diseases.. when you are exposed to it about every other shift there needs to be a little more “protection” provided.. For a little lab test, next time you get “the runs”, try wiping it with a paper mask and see how much goes through ;)

There is also a large movement to do away with catheters, due to “patient comfort” so someone, a nurse usually, gets stuck dealing with bedpans on a more frequent basis, exposure to more bodily fluids.. when what is truly better for the patient (& generally the ones keeping their sorry ass alive) is a catheter.

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I think for every hospital that had an Ebola patient there was one infected nurse so I believe their concerns should be listed to. The wife’s friends back home that work at Grady in Atlanta (Level 1 Trauma) have had zilch in terms of training other than “if you see them isolate them and we will ship them to Emory / CDC” – where they actually had extensive planning / training..

I’ll be glad to move into fatty money one day so she doesn’t have to deal with this anymore and also wont have to deal with her patients shitty families…

 
I'm surprised that people studying nursing and medicine don't get more training in dealing with the bodily fluids of their patients. Thank god there are people that do that type of work. We'd be lost without them.

 
There was a whole NPR series about 2 weeks ago or so about the occupation with the highest prevalence of back injuries: nursing. All from having to manhandle patients around. I know a nurse who deployed to Liberia for the Ebola crisis, and was medevaced home short of her scheduled return not because she contracted Ebola, but because she injured her back moving Ebola patients around (she's back on the job now, though, and no lawsuit).

 
Yes, that's why I mentioned the lift. After hurting her back a few years ago my wife refuses to pick these people up anymore. And I am glad. It's another thing where the patient's family will complain when she uses the lift that it is inhumane To their family member, however what they don't realize is that they either use the lift or they deal with chronic back pain for the rest of their life.

I think also if you surveyed nurses the best thing you could do for them is to go back to preventing family members from being able to be in the room almost 24 - 7. Or if they are going to be in the room there should be a big sign that tells them to keep their fucking mouth shut.

 
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