Ebola Volunteers Wrestle With Quarantine Mandates

[uppityperson]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ebola-volunteers-wrestle-quarantine-mandates-26776349

Dr. Robert Fuller didn't hesitate to go to Indonesia to treat survivors of the 2004 tsunami, to Haiti to help after the 2010 earthquake or to the Philippines after a devastating typhoon last year. But he's given up on going to West Africa to care for Ebola patients this winter. He could make the six-week commitment sought by his go-to aid organization, International Medical Corps. But the possibility of a three-week quarantine afterward adds more time than he can take away from his job heading UConn Health Center's emergency department.

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As Ebola-related quarantine policies have arisen around the United States, some health workers are reassessing whether, or how long, they can be among the hundreds that officials say are needed to fight the outbreak.

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Aid organizations say it's too soon to tell whether quarantine rules are significantly shrinking the number of volunteers, but the measures are complicating an already challenging search for help treating a disease that has killed nearly 5,000 people, including about 310 health care workers.

Some potential volunteers are wary of not only being quarantined but being seen as potential disease-carriers, rather than conscientious professionals. "People are afraid what will happen when their kid goes back to school, what their family will think," said Dr. Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer of aid organization Partners in Health.....

[Warpy]

1. Those idiotic mandates will be quietly dropped

now that the election is over and there is no reason to pander to hysterics.

[uppityperson]

2. Wouldn't that be nice. I can see being more stringent with non-HCW, travelers who may not know

how to correctly monitor themselves or how to demand they be taken seriously (like MrDuncan) though that may be changing per facility protocols.

But doctors, nurses? They are very capable, have been shown to be and should be allowed to self monitor. I am ironically amused by those who say nurses are incapable so need to be monitored by....nurses.

[riderinthestorm]

3. No surprise. nt

[rocktivity]

4. The incubation period should be made PART of the committment, then

Last edited Sun Nov 9, 2014, 01:19 PM - Edit history (5)

during which they can do work that does not involve patient or medical facility contact.

Then they won't have to be quarantined after traveling to the United States because their status will be either low-risk (having been in a country with a large Ebola outbreak within the past 21 days, with no known exposure such as NO direct contact with body fluids from a person sick with Ebola) or no-risk (having left a country with a large Ebola outbreak MORE than 21 days ago and has not been sick with Ebola since leaving that country):
http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/fs1027-monitoring-symptoms-controlling-movement.pdf


rocktivity