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Kane nurse fighting Ebola in Africa
Posted: Friday, October 24, 2014 7:00 am
By COLIN DEPPEN Era Reporter
c.deppen@bradfordera.com | 0 comments
A Kane woman has joined the front lines in the fight against Ebola, entering Liberia with an elite team of medical professionals called on to treat the West African nation’s infected.
A registered nurse, Lt. Trisha Asel Wright is among 65 members of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers chosen to staff a U.S. Department of Defense hospital in Liberia and treat health care workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus. They join Centers for Disease Control (CDC) workers already in the country.
Kate Migliaccio, public information officer with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said Wright’s team was “hand-selected” and arrived in Monrovia, Liberia on Sunday. Comprised of members with diverse clinical and public health backgrounds — Wright’s includes turns with the Bureau of Prisons, Federal Correctional Institution-McKean, Department of Justice, and Kane Community Hospital — the team is the first of several who will travel to West Africa to help combat the region’s outbreak. They will remain in-country for an unspecified amount of time, part of a sweeping government initiative to prevent a growing regional epidemic from reaching global pandemic status.
“She is a talented nurse and we know that her knowledge, determination and tenacity will serve her well in this new role,” said Tessa (Asel) Boschert, also of Kane, in an email to The Era discussing her sister’s recent deployment. “While we already miss her, we understand that her skills will make a huge difference in the lives of many. We look forward to her safe and healthy return.”
Liberia is located in the heart of an African Ebola outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives since beginning in March. There, the illness has overwhelmed an already inadequate health system, left bodies strewn in the streets and crews of makeshift morticians struggling to keep up.
The Department of Health and Human Services said with an approximately 50 percent death rate in the African outbreak, there is concern about the stress it is placing on the region’s health care workforce and system, including the loss of health care workers caring for the sick.
Resources like the Commissioned Corps are “playing a critical role in the response to that need,” according to a press release provided by Migliaccio and attributed to Health and Human Services. The statement said in addition to caring for infected health workers, the Commissioned Corps officers will also undergo further intensive training in Ebola response and advanced infection control.
“The Commissioned Corps are trained and ready to respond to public health crises and humanitarian missions,” said Acting Surgeon General Rear Admiral Dr. Boris Lushniak, M.P.H, who provides operational command of the Commissioned Corps. “The dedicated officers have the skills to make a significant impact in one of the international community’s most devastating public health emergencies.”
The Commissioned Corps is one of the seven uniformed services and is the only service solely committed to protecting, promoting and advancing the health and safety of the nation, Lushniak said. Members often serve on the front lines in public health emergency and crisis situations, including the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Superstorm Sandy and the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
According to Wright’s Facebook wall, she is a clinical nurse with the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service and past employee of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Department of Justice. She is also listed as a student at Clarion University of Pennsylvania and former student of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
In recent days social media posts concerning Wright have increasingly turned to her deployment, with family and friends offering prayers for her safe return.
One such post, attributed to a Connie Erdman-Carter, reads, “Stay safe! I’m so proud of you and what you are doing to protect all of us.”
Last month, a Liberian visitor to Dallas, Texas became the first Ebola case confirmed in the United States. The patient later died, but not before infecting two nurses. Dozens of individuals having come into direct or indirect contact with the women — including three northwestern Pennsylvania residents who shared a Cleveland-bound airplane with the second Dallas nurse to be diagnosed — are being carefully monitored for symptoms.
While altering everything from airport boardings to hospital protocol, the Dallas Ebola cases also helped prompt the deployment of U.S. health care resources, like the Commissioned Corps, to target the outbreak at its source.
Locally, hospitals like Bradford Regional Medical Center, Kane Community Hospital, Penn Highlands Elk in St. Marys and Cole Memorial Hospital in Coudersport, are taking added precautions — including drills, Ebola Response Plans and practice sessions on use of the full-body, Hazmat suits that have come to symbolize the illness which is typically spread through contact with infected bodily fluids. While admitting the likelihood of an outbreak in rural, northcentral Pennsylvania is low, those like Kathy Lemmon, director of infection prevention and disease control at Penn Highlands Heathcare, are unwilling to rule new cases out.
“We do not have a heightened concern,” Lemmon said, adding, “with world travel as it is, we cannot rule out seeing a case, but we are preparing for that event should it occur.”
