Hospitals preparing since June

Dr. Mark Gendreau of Peabody’s Lahey Medical Center says U.S. hospitals have protocols in place:

Every hospital in the commonwealth has been working on this since June. I would say that all of the hospitals in Massachusetts are very capable of handling a patient who presents with Ebola.

Doctors and nurses have been trained to ask patients with possible symptoms if they have traveled to Africa in the last 21 days. If the answer is yes, the medical staff would ‘gown up’ and the patient would be immediately isolated and tested. If the test is positive the CDC and state Department of Public Health will be notified. The patient will also be asked for the names of people he or she had been in contact with and contacts would be instructed to isolate themselves at home, check their temperature twice a day and immediately report any symptoms or fever to the local health department.