DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A former nurse at Emory Hospital who treated Ebola patients in 2014 is sharing insight into what could be taking place inside the hantavirus unit.
She told Channel 2’s Cory James that it could be a very isolating experience for the two passengers who are quarantining.
Sarah Chism says they are in good hands because the medical staff does extensive infectious disease training for moments like this.
“The hantavirus to me is more like Ebola than COVID,” Chism said.
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Now a nurse anesthetist based in south Georgia, Chism cared for some of the four Ebola patients brought to Atlanta in 2014.
“We had little fans in our hoods, we wore paper scrubs,” she said.
While she says that the hantavirus unit could be very different, the standards and policies are likely the same.
“At anytime, if there was only one patient there always has to be two nurses, there has to be a nurse in that middle room and then a nurse in the patient room,” Chism explained.
She says the nurse in the patient room would go into a locker room after leaving the patient and take off the outer layer of PPE. The nurse in the middle room would then clean behind the other nurse.
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Chism said the decontamination process was also used when samples were collected.
“It was bagged multiple times, the bags were clean, they were rebagged, cleaned, rebagged several times and the nurse was in charge of getting that specimen or bloodwork out of the patient’s room cleanly into the rest of the hospital or whatever it was going to go,” she explained.
She said she is confident those working in the hantavirus unit will knock it out of the park.
“There will be no contamination; the policy and standards are so high,” Chism said.
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