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Dallas hospital may face state inquiry on Ebola patient's handling
The state health department may investigate a Dallas hospital’s handling of the nation’s first Ebola case as medical records released Friday raise more troubling questions about the Liberian patient’s initial treatment.Thomas Eric Duncan had fever that hit as high as 103 degrees and Ebola-like symptoms, including abdominal pain, dizziness, a headache and reduced urination, when he arrived Sept. 25 at the emergency room of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, according to hospital records the family gave to The Associated Press. The records depict a man far sicker than hospital officials had initially indicated, with details that left some infectious disease experts aghast...Questions about the hospital’s handling of the case intensified Friday with the release of the records in North Carolina. “It sounds like they did a whole battery of tests, but the problem is they didn’t get the most important piece of information, which is, ‘I came from West Africa,’” said Dr. Alexander Garza, associate dean of public health at St. Louis University College of Public Health. “There’s plenty of examples in history of medical people who got led down the wrong path because they didn’t ask the right questions. Sadly.” Other experts were more critical. “It’s just colossal incompetence,” said Dr. Joseph McCormick, regional dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville, who helped investigate the first recorded outbreak of Ebola in 1976. “How could you possibly be given this, with his travel history, and not have considered him to be a prime suspect for Ebola?” ...Dr. William Schaffner, chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said that, even without knowing the man had been in Africa, the symptoms reported in the medical records suggest the patient might have been too sick to be sent home. Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-10-11 |
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