Local hospitals prepare for Ebola outbreak
Posted Sep 10, 2014 01:20:36 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The chance of Ebola becoming widespread in North America is small, but local hospitals are preparing for the worst possible scenario.
St. Mary’s General Hospital, and Grand River both have additional screening for patients in the Emergency Room, and those admitted to either facility.
Officials at the hospitals say they’ve learned a lot from the 2004 outbreak of SARS and they’re hopeful he lessons learned will help combat Ebola here.
“What we’re doing now is really organizing based on the lessons learned on how to respond to these issues” says the Medical Director for Infection Control and Prevention at the hospitals, Doctor William Ciccotelli. “I think the very different point between SARS and now, is that SARS we actually had local cases and local transmission, and multiple waves, whereas here we’re still waiting for that local case.”
He adds that if anyone is found to have Ebola-like symptoms, they’ll be put in isolation until the appropriate tests have been conducted.
“In addition to seasonal respiratory viruses, in addition to the MERS virus that’s in the Middle East” adds Ciccotelli “we’ve now added specific sections to deal with fever and returning travellers from these key African nations that have Ebola. There’s an action plan in place if they check off enough of the boxes. ”
To listen to the full interview with Dr. Ciccotelli, click below:
