Anderson Cooper 360
of October 16, 2014:
Nurse Briana Aguirre works at Texas Presbyterian Hospital, though her future there is now uncertain. That's because she is speaking out about what she says she's seen and experienced during the treatment of Ebola patient Thomas Duncan and others. She speaks to Anderson with her attorney Bob Kelly. Ms. Aguirre describes chaos, a lack of training, confusing protocols from the CDC and unnecessary risks that she says the nurses were exposed to on the job.
Ebola gear left neck exposed
Below find the transcripts of three of the videos made of Anderson Cooper's interview with Briana Aguirre, the brave whistler-blower nurse from Texas. I have transcribed Briana's portion of the interview and also that of her lawyer. The three videos can viewed here and a podcast of the show is available here.
"They are blaming the nurses."
Briana on hospital's lack of transparency:
And ultimately I agree with every word you said and that's why I'm here. I am so tired of hearing their explanations that don't mean anything to anyone, I'm tired of them blaming the nurses for being sick. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it and I'm not taking it.
Those nurses, they're heroes, and I refuse to continue to hear them, you know, in any other light. And I'm not going to.
Briana on the handling of medical waste:
Well, there was no clear way that it was gonna be handled. I believe that, I mean, I wasn't, I never called a sanitation crew, I just told my charge nurse, I told my supervisor, I told the CDC, I told the infectious disease, you know, I said, excuse me, I said, "We need our garbage picked up."
You know, we are generating a crazy amount of garbage, just with the amount of gear we're wearing. And every time you have to go in a room, you have to put it all on and take it all off and do it again. And you spend essentially all day getting dressed and undressed. And we we're wearing disposable scrubs, paper scrubs, some type of product.
A crazy amount, a massive amount of garbage and waste, some of it coming from the patient's room. It was just piling up. When I came in on Saturday morning, the 11th, the room that was designated as the garbage room, was already, it was already chuck full. And, I mean, they were in and out of that room and they were just throwing bags in there. So then it started being put in the hall way.
And when I came there on Sunday, ["a hallway?"] Yeah, a hallway that's inside of the isolation unit, so it's not like some hallway that any Joe Shmoe could be walking down. It's nurses, it was a locked down unit. But, the CDC and the infectious disease people were walking up and down that hallway without anything on. They had no gloves on, they had no foot covers, they had no PPE on whatsoever, and they were walking right near and touching stuff all up and down that hallway, and then going into areas that were designated to be clean.
And that's why I call that scene just an uncontrolled, unsystematic, chaotic, you know, ridiculous set-up.
Briana's lawyer on whistle-blower protection:
There are some. But the whistle protection blower laws in Texas are not that strong. That's why I want, I would really like to have, to be able to avoid any litigation or law suit, I'm, if I could, making a public request to Jim Berg who's the president of the hospital to contact you, Anderson, go on record, and say, "Look, we recognize that this nurse is a hero, and her job is in no way in jeopardy, as a result of what happened."
We don't want to go into litigation. ["We'll reach out to them."*] She's not in this for the money. She just wants to know that her job is secure and she can continue to be a nurse and provide for her family.
Briana on seeking treatment at this hospital should she test positive:
I don't know that I could legally refuse, but I would try. I would do anything and everything not to be a patient there. And I told this to someone else, and it's not because I feel that a facility, another facility would do a better job, I have a wonderful job, a wonderful hospital. It's because of what I saw there, and what I actually know to be going wrong there. And I just, I would be sitting there feeling like I could be contaminated any minute, and if I didn't already have Ebola, that I may get it just by being there, by having a doctor cross contaminate between patients, by having an incompetent infections disease, infectious control department, by having incompetent CDC leadership there,
Absolutely, they promised, they promised to be transparent, and they promised to put their employees safety as their number one priority. And I feel lied to, and I know so many other people that do as well.
"I raised a stink."
Briana on inadequate gear:
I immediately felt like it was ridiculous, and I immediately posed the same question that you're posing to me, asking me right now, I said, "Why, why, what explanation can you give me or anyone about why we would be in the second week of an Ebola crisis in our hospital and we don't even have the same equipment or protection that's given to sanitation workers that have no contact with patients at all?"
And they said, "We know, we've ordered it. We've ordered it."
I mean, I talked to charge nurses, I talked to supervisors, I talked to house supervisors, I talked to the CDC about it, I talked to infectious disease about it. I raised a stink with anyone and everyone, and I said, "There's no explanation for why we don't have it."
You know, we're part of an organization of hospitals. They could have gone to any one of our THR hospitals and said, "We have nurses with their necks exposed dealing with a very very dangerous situation and we will now need your supplies to get them in the right hands." And they chose not to do that.
Briana on inexcusable delay:
Two weeks? I mean, I could have, and this is not to be taken lightly, but I'm sure I could have ordered that on Amazon prime and had it in two days. I'm sure I could have, I mean, at least a box of them or something. I mean if you can't get 'em from another hospital go to a sanitation department that has 'em and buy them from 'em. And give 'em to us.
It's just, it's outrages, and the most outrages part about it is that every time I think about the facts that I'm saying right now, I just know that the nurses that were infected, they were dealing with the same equipment while they were dealing with so much more than I dealt with personally.
They were dealing with an Ebola positive patient with copious secretions with diarrhea, vomiting, with continuous dialysis, you know, mechanical ventilation, all these dangerous dangerous medical procedures. And they put their lives on the line and without the proper equipment.
And there's ["And you believe Nurse Pham was wearing that kind of equipment when she was exposed."] I know she was because the equipment we needed was still on order.
"My neck was exposed."
Brianna on failure of hospital to train as per CDC recommendations:
No one every spoke to me about Ebola no one ever spoke to, I never witnessed any discussions going on among my colleagues about, you know, what to look for, how to be prepared. There were no classes offered, there were no trainings offered.
There was a seminar, a one time seminar offered to doctors and nurses. Just if you were interested, you could take it, you could go it. And basically, it was one, it was offered one time. And it wasn't suggested that we go. It was just, here's what we're offering here.
Briana on the protective gear worn as she cared for Nina Pham:
On the day that I took care of her, it was my first time being involved in the care of any potential or confirmed Ebola case in the hospital, and, you know they asked me if I'd been in there, if I'd been trained. I said, "No I had not."
They said, "We need someone in there that's been trained, that's someone that's been part of this." Someone that's gonna know what to do more. And they asked for a vo-for someone who's been trained, and the whole room of nurses was silent, indicating that none of them were either gonna come forward, or that none of them were going to admit they'd been trained so that they were put in there.
And then, after that, they said, "we're gonna need a volunteer, to care-" and it wasn't just Nina, there was other patients that day "-were gonna need a nurse to volunteer to care for patients in that area." They said, "Who's gonna volunteer?"
And I said, "I will, you know, I'll-" ["And what was the gear that they gave you?"]
So, I went over there and I had the infectious disease department, the infectious disease department and I had the CDC, some representative from the CDC there telling us what to put on.
And they were going over the different changes they made because, you know, they-before they were putting on three pairs of gloves, now they were putting on two. And they were saying this is the system we've moved to now.
And it was a Tyvek suit a white Tyvek suit, I assume it was a hazmat suit. It was only available in one size, so it didn't fit us all. And other people were given yellow Dupont suits. And I'm not sure which one's superior to another, they're not exactly designed the same, but depending on your size, you had to pick which one fit, get which one fit you.
And so we had that suit on, a pair of surgical boot covers that, you know, just cover your shoes, and then a taller pair of surgical boot covers that go up to either mid-calf or almost to my knee. And then we had on a pair of Nitrile gloves about to here [indicates mid forearm] taped to that Tyvek suit, and then another pair of long Nitrile gloves on over the top of that, so a total of two.
And then we had a hat on over our head. Both types of suits had a hood, and it just went around here [traces edge of face] and it came to a zip at the base of our necks. and we had on a papper machine which is a form of airborne isolation that is a machine you hook around your waist; it leads by a tube up to a hood that sits on the crown of your head and goes-and covers your face with a shield and goes under chin.
And then because the zipper of the suit was a source of contamination, we had an apron on covering that zipper seam so that no, you know, bodily fluids or anything could penetrate that and go to our under-layer of clothing.
Briana on her neck being exposed:
Absolutely [it was]. Yes. ["What part of your neck?] Well the zipper ended about here [indicates area of about 3 inches below chin] on me. The hood ended about here [indicates top of neck] on me and this part right here [indicates from top of neck down about 3 inches, and about three inches across at top] made a triangle that was open. It was, it was completely open.
The very first time that they were-instructed me about how to put this on, is exactly the point when I said, "Why would my neck be exposed? Why do I have on two pairs of gloves, tape, a plastic suit covering my whole body, two hoods, a total of three pairs of booties including the one on my tyvek suit, an apron, and my entire body is covered in at least two to three layers of plastic, and my neck is hanging out." And I just told them, "Why would an area so close to my mouth and my nose, why would that be exposed?"
And ["What did they say?"] they didn't have an answer.
*AC360 did receive this statement from Texas Health Presbyterian:
Her employment status is the same today as it was yesterday. We would welcome the opportunity to learn more about her observations when she is willing.