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Constable: Suburban hospitals prepare for Ebola, worry about flu

A second health care worker in Texas contracts Ebola, and we grow scared it will show up in the suburbs. Fear, especially in our post-Sept. 11 world, makes things happen.

We opened mail in trailers out of fear of anthrax. We stripped to our socks out of fear of shoe bombers. We stocked up on plastic sheets and duct tape out of fear of chemical attacks. We eyed ads for bulletproof backpacks out of fear of school shootings. So, if you have the misfortune to vomit on an airplane, expect to be bubble-wrapped and greeted at the terminal by government agents dressed similarly to the ones who tried to quarantine “E.T.”

But for suburban hospital workers on the front lines of infections, Ebola wouldn't be the first risk they've faced. Or the deadliest.

“There are a lot of things besides Ebola we are concerned about,” says Brigette Bucholz, manager of infection prevention and control for Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights. “Health care workers are always at risk for getting weird things.”

Bucholz studies daily updates on Ebola from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But she has been receiving details on the latest spread of Ebola in West Africa since March. Approaching 5,000 deaths worldwide as of Wednesday, Ebola still has a way to go before it tops the mortality caused by deadly things we don't seem to fear. All the U.S. deaths from terrorism, anthrax, Ebola, school shootings and West Nile virus combined fall short of the 6,500 Americans killed each year by peptic ulcers.

Hospital workers face potentially deadly infections every day. Enterovirus 68, the rare virus strain that has infected hundreds of Americans, mostly children, has been responsible for at least two deaths. But it got knocked off the front page by Ebola.

“A couple of months before that there was a scare with MERS,” says Bucholz, recalling the nation's first case of a patient with the often-deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome. The man, treated at a hospital in Munster, Ind., recovered, and MERS fell from the headlines. A similar fear ebbed and waned a decade ago when a related virus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed 774 around the globe but none in the U.S.

Contagious diseases spur more concern, and even panic, than heart disease, which kills more Americans than any other cause. We can significantly increase our protection against deadly heart disease by eating better and exercising, but many of us are more afraid of contracting a fatal disease from another person.

“That's not the mentality of a health care worker. They come to work because they want to take care of people,” Bucholz says.

“Diseases are part of the job. People go into nursing because they care about other people,” says Alice Johnson, executive director of the Illinois Nurses Association. The union leader says a few of the 180,000 nurses in Illinois have called with questions about whether they have the proper training and equipment they would need to handle an Ebola case.

“There are definitely concerns, but there's not a sense of panic,” Johnson says.

On Wednesday, the CDC hosted a call with the American Nurses Association to talk about how front-line nurses could be better prepared for Ebola. The CDC will conduct a similar call today with the American Hospital Association on Ebola preparedness.

“We all are aware that the next problem is just a plane ride away,” Bucholz says, noting that hospital workers are trained to detect, protect and respond to an outbreak of Ebola, or anything else.

“I am more worried about influenza,” Bucholz adds. Every week, Bucholz and other suburban hospital managers get a briefing on the number of influenza cases reported throughout the state. While not as dramatically terrifying as the tales of Ebola, flu and pneumonia killed 53,826 Americans in one year, moving from ninth place to eighth in the CDC's most recent tally of the leading causes of death in the United States.

“Influenza makes me nervous because it effects so many people,” says Bucholz, noting that its transmission is far easier than Ebola's. “With influenza, you may not have any symptoms, and you can still make other people sick.”

She's already gotten her annual flu shot and says the hospital is vigilant about making sure employees are vaccinated. Communication and hygiene are key to preventing most infections, Bucholz says. To contract Ebola, you must come in contact with the fluids of someone who already shows signs of being sick with Ebola. That makes health care workers among the most vulnerable.

“There's a very fine line between hyper-vigilance and panic,” Bucholz says, noting that Northwest Community Hospital is prepared for whatever comes through the emergency-room door. “Influenza or Ebola, we're able to take care of people.”

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  Hospital workers are on the front line of Ebola, but Brigette Bucholz, manager of infection prevention and control at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, says deadly influenza is much more likely to be a concern locally. Mark Welsh/mwelsh@dailyherald.com
  Hospital workers are on the front line of Ebola, but Brigette Bucholz, manager of infection prevention and control at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, says deadly influenza is much more likely to be a concern locally. Mark Welsh/mwelsh@dailyherald.com
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