Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas staff members lined the hospital driveway to show their support for Nina Pham, who was on her way from the hospital to a Maryland hospital. (Tony Gutierrez/The Associated Press)
I’m in the hot seat again to write our Ebola editorial, which means representing our newspaper’s point of view (as opposed to my own personal opinion on the latest developments).
Here’s a preview of where I’m going with it:
More than 70 health care workers heroically delivered on everything asked of them in caring for Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan, before his death Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
The first instinct of anyone faced with such a daunting — downright terrifying — task would be to turn and run. But these caregivers did just the opposite; they put their lives on the line to try to save a man from a deadly disease about which much is still not known. (As I wrote in our editorial from earlier this week: For more than two weeks, Presbyterian and its staff have been forced into learning how to fight a fire as the blaze burned around them.)
While questions – and many contradictions — remain about the overall handling of Duncan’s case, I daresay most of us wouldn’t single out the rank and file of Presbyterian Hospital for blame.
Much has been asked of those workers. Now Dallas and its residents need to ask for one thing more: Rigorously follow the written agreement to avoid public transit and public places for as long as doctors deem necessary.
It would not have been unreasonable to impose a more formal quarantine. Before the first Presby nurse, Nina Pham, was diagnosed with Ebola, fellow Presby nurse Amber Vernon had already traveled to Ohio on a commercial jet. After the news broke about Pham, Vernon flew home, with CDC approval, despite having a slight fever. And now she too has been diagnosed with Ebola.
The result? Just in the last week or so, the tentacles of possible exposure have spread to hundreds of people in multiple states.
But Dallas County commissioners backed away Thursday from any emergency declaration. They agreed that the health workers can be trusted to quarantine themselves. Here’s how Mayor Mike Rawlings described this voluntary order: They can walk their dog. But they can’t go to church. They can’t go to schools. They can’t go to shopping centers.”
The Ebola tragedy has us all a little wobbly. But let’s remember that the concern is most real for those 70-plus Presbyterian workers – not to mention the agonizing worry that their loved ones are feeling.
For everyone’s sake, and the sake of the city of Dallas itself, these staff members must be heroes once again. Heroes of common sense who recognize the seriousness of the situation and respond with an abundance of caution.
That will put them at the head of the line in assuring everyone that, despite a series of bad decisions up to this point, Dallas will get this right.