Sept. 15, 2014 -- The CDC is looking for a few good nurses and doctors -- but especially nurses -- to help fight the Ebola epidemic.
In response to the critical needs for more health care workers in West Africa, the agency plans to launch a 3-day training course to teach qualified professionals to safely treat people with Ebola. It will be held at the FEMA-run Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, AL. Classes will begin Oct. 6.
The training is expected to be an important part of President Barack Obama’s plan to step up the U.S. response to the crisis in West Africa. Obama is due to announce more details of the plan from the CDC’s Atlanta campus on Tuesday, according to the White House.
On Friday, Margaret Chan, MD, director-general of the World Health Organization, said the Ebola-affected countries are running short on almost everything.
“But the thing we need most of all is people, health care workers,” Chan said. “The right people. The right specialists. And specialists who are appropriately trained, and know how to keep themselves safe.”
Cuba -- a country famed for its medical training programs -- offered 165 doctors, nurses, and infection control specialists who will travel to Sierra Leone, a country that lost a fourth doctor to the deadly virus over the weekend.The Ebola outbreak has taken a heavy toll on health care workers in countries where health care had already been gutted by years of poverty and civil war. More than 300 health workers have become infected and nearly half have died, according to the WHO.
Training Course Details
The course offered by the CDC is modeled on the training provided by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders. Among other things, instructors will teach participants to safely put on and take off the full-body personal protective equipment that doctors must wear around highly infectious patients. It will also teach the buddy system that MSF uses to help keep its doctors safe. Partners are taught to watch each other as they don the gear to make sure no steps are missed.
“This is an unprecedented event that’s occurring,” says John Brooks, MD. He's an infectious disease specialist with the CDC who is in charge of the program. “The call for people who can provide medical care to the hundreds of patients who have Ebola virus disease, it’s a big call. The first step in getting people to go care for these people is to provide them with the proper training to make sure they themselves don’t get infected and can provide that care safely.”
Brooks says the greatest need is for mid-level care providers like nurses and physician assistants.
“There may be a misperception that the kind of care that people need for Ebola virus disease is intensive-level ICU care. That’s the ideal,” Brooks says. “But that’s simply not available in these countries.”
He says the main care provided to people with Ebola is giving them medications by mouth like acetaminophen (Tylenol) to bring down a fever, giving injections, and starting IV lines.
People who have those skills also need to have an invitation from a volunteer organization to work in the affected countries before they can take the course. They should also have some experience working in resource-poor settings, and will have to pay their way to and from the training center.
source : Want to Fight Ebola? CDC to Train Health Workers
