...
By Madeline Grant
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
The health center in Madrid where Ebola patient Teresa Romero is being treated has reportedly been forced to draft in extra staff because many nurses are refusing to work with cases – or suspected cases – of the deadly virus.
According to El Pais, Spain's biggest daily newspaper, a number of health staff at the Carlos III Hospital in Madrid have resigned their positions, citing concerns about the safety conditions in the hospital, and the effectiveness of the protective clothing.
Elvira González, provincial vice-secretary of the SAE nurses' union, told EL Pais that "there are members of staff who are canceling their contracts so that they don't have to enter [rooms with Ebola cases]."
Read More on World
An unidentified worker at the hospital also told the newspaper that many nurses are "making excuses" to avoid having to deal with potential Ebola patients. "They are saying that they've got their period, that they're getting dizzy, that they're claustrophobic … People get anxious and they can't work like that, being so nervous."
Teresa Romero, the first person to contract the deadly disease on European soil, had been part of the team treating Manuel Garcia Viejo, a Spanish missionary who was repatriated to Madrid for medical care after contracting Ebola in Sierra Leone.
It has not fully known how Miss Romero contracted Ebola, although she told the Spanish press on Wednesday that she might have caught the virus from touching her face with a glove after cleaning the room of a dead missionary.
Spain acknowledged to the European Union that Ms Romero may have become infected because of the "possible relaxation of security measures during the movement of the body of [an Ebola victim] or the disposal of waste material".
Several other patients are being monitored in the hospital after having come into contact with Romero, though so far, none of them are confirmed as having caught the virus.
In America, airport cleaning staff have also gone on strike, citing health concerns, as the US government prepares to start screening passengers from West Africa at five major airports. Cleaners at LaGuardia Airport in New York staged a one-day strike over what they say is insufficient protection for workers whose duties include cleaning up vomit and human waste. The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with the "bodily fluids" of infected people.
"The nation is frightened, and people are frightened of this disease," the U.S. health secretary, Sylvia Burwell, said on Thursday, a day after the death of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines