Ebola Virus Disease and Emergency Nurses

Ebola Virus Disease and Emergency Nurses

On 26 August 1976 a patient arrived at the small mission hospital at Yambuku, along the Ebola river in the now Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was received and treated by the nurses at the emergency room of this small hospital – and within days, 11 of these nurses contracted what is now known as Ebola Virus Disease and died.

Today, nearly 40 year later, nurses are again involved in managing an outbreak, now with approximately 24000 cases, in a different part of Africa, in which nearly 800 health care practitioners contracted the disease and more than 500 died - many of them nurses.

In view of this threat, emergency nurses rose to the challenge in South Africa to ensure that the Emergency Departments of all hospitals are prepared and ready to manage a suspected case of EVD with adequate protection for all health care practitioners.

Emergency Nurses are now, unlike our predecessors in Yambuku, aware that the disease presents with very general symptoms such as fever, headache, nausea and vomiting, but that good patient history recording can identify a suspected patient who was in contact with a sick person or with a travel history to or from affected areas. We are now prepared to protect the health care practitioners in the Emergency Department against body fluid transmission of EVD, which include blood, urine, saliva, sweat, faeces, vomitus, breast milk and semen, by donning personal protective equipment protecting broken skin and mucus membranes from contact with body fluids. For this purpose sets of PPE are kept ready in most Emergency Departments.

Currently, in most hospitals, the Emergency Nurses are fulfilling a lead role in identifying an appropriate area in the department where isolation areas can be established in the form of a red isolation area, separated by an effective yellow transit area from a green support area.

Specialised short courses on establishing high security bio-safety isolation in the Emergency Departments are now also available for emergency nurses and the details are available from ENSSA.

Through their actions; emergency nurses had not only contributed extensively to the readiness levels of hospitals, but had also demonstrated their commitment to patient care by volunteering to participate in the care teams managing and transporting suspected Ebola Virus Disease patients, with a commitment to care and compassion. Currently emergency nurses all over South Africa stand ready to identify, isolate, manage, but most importantly, provide care for patients with suspected Ebola Virus Disease.

Theo Ligthelm, RN

(Only Nurse on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Ebola Virus Disease)