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- Virginia Hospital Center turns down Ebola patient
- Hospital refused to admit woman
- Says doesnt want to be known as Ebola Hospital
Va. Hospital Center Refused to Admit Suspected Ebola case from the Pentagon
An Ebola patient from the Pentagon was left helpless after he wasn’t admitted at the Virginia Hospital Center on Friday as revealed by the county officials. This is rather surprising and irresponsible since only two weeks ago the hospital had announced that it was ready to deal with the patients carrying the deadly virus. After an inquiry from ARLnow.com the Arlington County Fire Department has confirmed that the woman, a potential Ebola patient, was turned down from the VHC. At the time when the medics brought her to the hospital, she remained confined to the ambulance and was only thought to have the disease.
ACFD spokeswoman Lt. Sarah Marchegiani said “We were turned away. We followed our protocol and brought the patient to the closest hospital (VHC), at which point we were rerouted to Fairfax Inova.” ARLnow.com has requested for comments on this but the hospital has decided to remain silent on the matter and has so far made no comments at all. The department had been informed that VHC was equipped to deal with such patients however upon their arrival they were told that the hospital wasn’t prepared for such a patient yet. “The reason told to our medical director was that they couldn’t handle the patient,” said Marchegiani.
VHC has gone against its own statement. While talking to local TV station WUSA 9, the hospital claimed that it was prepared to handle any patients of the virus.
“Virginia Hospital Center wants to reassure our community that the Hospital has the infrastructure and procedures already in place to screen, and if necessary, isolate, test and treat all high-risk patients. We drill and prepare for just such situations; therefore, our staff is highly trained to take appropriate precautions for a suspected and/or confirmed Ebola case. A multi-disciplinary taskforce has reviewed our infection control guidelines and reinforced education of the Hospital staff to ensure it can detect a patient with Ebola Virus Disease, protect all healthcare workers so they can safely care for the patient, and respond to the patient in a timely manner.”
An ARLnow.com tipster has revealed that the VHC emergency room was called from the scene the Pentagon and they asked that the patient be brought to them. However, at the arrival of the patient at the hospital, the administration staff at the VHC refused to let her in. There was apparently also a heated exchanged between the emergency responders and the admin at the VHC. All this time the patient had been waiting inside the ambulance and the hospital was afraid that it would lose business as patients would ultimately refuse to visit after tagging it as an ‘Ebola Hospital’.
However, after having talked to the county’s emergency officials, the hospital has now agreed that it would accept any Ebola patients in the future. The officials at the Arlington County have also confirmed that the patient had not travelled to West Africa and hadn’t been outside the country at all.
source: arlnow