joyfulheart
Veteran Member
Several stories, several links here:These facilities will be opened within the next 24 hours!
Fair use on all, etc...
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/heal...ment-ut-southwestern-hospital-texas/17663835/
A state-of-the-art Ebola treatment and infectious disease bio containment facility in North Texas will open within 24 hours, Gov. Rick Perry announced Tuesday.
The containment facility will be located on a floor of the Methodist Campus for Continuing Care in Richardson and will be put together in partnership with UT Southwestern Medical Center, Methodist Health System, and Parkland Hospital System.
According to a release from the governor's office, the facility was one of the first recommendations made by the Texas Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response, which was created in the wake of the Ebola infections in Dallas.
"In the event of another diagnosis this facility will allow us to act quickly to limit the virus' reach and give patients the care they need in an environment where health care workers are specially trained and equipped to deal with the unique requirements of this disease," said Gov. Perry.
The facility, which will be capable of holding up to 10 patients, will be the second in the state. The first is at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
The hospital systems' contributions to the facility were explained in the governor's press release:
UT Southwestern Medical Center is contributing the expertise of physicians experienced in infectious disease, critical care and other specialties, and some nursing professionals as staffing requires.
Methodist Health System is allowing the use of an entire floor of the Methodist Campus for Continuing Care in Richardson, including an ICU wing well suited for the care of infectious disease patients. They will provide some modifications for the critical steps of decontamination, laboratory equipment and other dedicated personnel for IT and biomedical support. Ebola and/or other infectious disease patients can be safely isolated
Parkland Hospital has already begun transferring critical equipment such as personal protective equipment, IV fluids and laboratory supplies to the Methodist facility. In addition, Parkland will provide nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists and lab technicians.
Parkland will provide the staff for a "strike team" of more than 50 health care workers for rapid response, if needed.
According to the governor, Texas Health Resources, which treated all three Ebola patients while they were in Dallas at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, was not included in the partnership to "give them relief" following weeks of caring for infectious patients including Thomas Eric Duncan, and nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, who were infected while treating Duncan.
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/P...as-Ebola-Preparedness-Response-279914872.html
New Ebola Containment Facility Comes to North Texas
Texas is creating two new biocontainment facilities for treating possible future Ebola patients, one in Richardson and the other in Galveston, Gov. Rick Perry announced Tuesday, as two Dallas nurses remain hospitalized out of state with the potentially deadly virus.
The Methodist Campus for Continuing Care in Richardson will host the new facility on a floor of its hospital, as well as in a wing of its ICU best-suited for treating infectious patients.
Doctors and nurses from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas will staff the new unit there, with nurses, lab technicians and other health care workers from Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas working alongside them.
Perry stressed the need for better Ebola preparedness at a news conference Tuesday at UTSW to unveil the new Ebola-ready facilities, weeks after the first U.S. Ebola patient sought treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and days after two nurses who treated him became infected.
"The past three weeks have taught us that treating an infectious disease like Ebola is not just a theoretical problem," Perry said.
He acknowledged the burden Presbyterian had shouldered in becoming the first U.S. hospital to diagnose a patient with Ebola, when Thomas Eric Duncan was admitted with the disease weeks before he died.
"Presbyterian has played an important role," Perry said. "With that said, that hospital has been on the front line. They have paid a heavy price."
Dr. Brett Giroir, the Texas A&M Health Science Center chief whom Perry tapped this month to head the state's Ebola task force, said the new facilities should prevent such problems in the future, should new patients be diagnosed.
"What we are trying to do with the new protocol," Giroir said, "is to learn from our current experience."
In addition to the facility in Richardson, an Ebola treatment biocontainment facility is being established at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Previously, officials had eyed sending Ebola patients to one of four top-level biocontainment facilities in the U.S.: Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland, Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha or St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana.
Dallas nurse Nina Pham is currently being treated in isolation at NIH, while her coworker Amber Vinson is being treated at Emory, the same hospital where Dr. Kent Brantly of Fort Worth recovered from the virus. Officials have still not determined exactly how Pham and Vinson contracted the disease.
On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines for how health care workers should gear up to treat Ebola patients after Pham and Vinson, were diagnosed with the potentially deadly disease after treating Thomas Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S.
The guidelines call for face shields, hoods, boot covers and other garb that leave no part of the body exposed. They also call for a trained monitor to supervise the donning and doffing of protective wear. And they call for repeated training and practice.
