WPRO Newsroom
Rhode Island hospitals will soon begin mock Ebola trials to help better prepare health workers in case the virus appears in the state.
“We’ve been preparing for several months through meetings, trainings, education, getting provided information from the CDC,” said President of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island Mike Souza. “We’ve been training personnel for the last month or so, we’ve been getting provided regular updates.”
In a joint statement, the coalition of hospitals along with the Department of Health and the Rhode Island State Nurses Association will begin conducting “stress tests” to determine if there are gaps in knowledge or procedures to better treat patients and keep the virus contained.
“We are prepared. Hospitals, at least recently, have volunteered to do stress testing to make sure that there are no gaps and to make sure there are no refinements for any of the processes that we’ve outlined incase we do see a case arrive at the hospital,” said Souza.
The statement addresses grievances made by two nursing unions over the lack of preparedness of Rhode Island hospitals and the Department of Health, specifically by accounting protective equipment and determining isolation zones for infected patients.
The hospitals say they are committed to providing their front-line staff with proper training.
