Teh One Who Knocks
10-08-2014, 10:50 AM
By Jason Sickles - Yahoo! News
http://i.imgur.com/AOdMX2vl.jpg
DALLAS – What if Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan doesn’t pull through?
It’s something Dallas County leaders don’t want to think about, but it’s a possibility that will present health officials here with a situation they have not experienced: how to handle a body that according to the World Health Organization, could remain highly contagious for several days.
“It’s been discussed, but there’s been no conclusion,” said Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services. “That’s a contingency discussion.”
In early August, medical missionary Kent Brantly became the first U.S. patient to be treated for Ebola after he contracted the disease in West Africa and was transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Soon after, the CDC published a document titled “Guidance for Safe Handling of Human Remains of Ebola Patients in U.S. Hospitals and Mortuaries,” which states that the “handling of human remains should be kept to a minimum.”
Health officials say Duncan, 42, is fighting for his life at Texas Health Presbyterian, where he has been in an isolation ward since Sept. 28. He is in critical but stable condition, on a ventilator, and receiving kidney dialysis. Last weekend he started receiving an experimental drug called brincidofovir.
Seven patients, including Duncan and Brantly, have been or are currently being treated for Ebola or exposure to the virus at U.S. hospitals.
According to federal recommendations, hospital staff should not attempt to clean the deceased or remove any medical lines or tubes. Instead, “the body should be wrapped in a plastic shroud” and immediately placed in two thick and zippered leakproof bags for transport to the morgue.
What this means for family is likely no chance to mourn loved ones at a traditional funeral service.
Dallas County Medical Examiner Dr. Jeffrey Barnard, whose office handles the collection and transportation of corpses, did not immediately return calls seeking comment for this story. An employee who answered the phone at his office declined to say if there was a plan should Duncan pass away.
“I can't give any information out,” the woman told Yahoo News. “I have to end the call.”
Dallas County has been the lead agency for the Ebola investigation and containment in Dallas, but Thompson said his local team would defer to other experts if Duncan succumbs to the disease.
“The state and the CDC will make a recommendation on how the body will be disposed of,” said Thompson, whose office was criticized for being slow to decontaminate the Dallas apartment where Duncan stayed when he arrived in Texas from Liberia.
The CDC recommends autopsies be avoided, and that no embalming be performed.
It’s been a topic of discussion at the Dallas Institute of Funeral Service, where Wayne Cavender is an instructor and administrator.
“Since they don't have a good handle on controlling the disease itself, they are worried about an epidemic,” Cavender told Yahoo News. “So that's one way to help keep it from going further. Because if we embalm, we are going to come in contact with all the body fluids and everything. With universal precautions we shouldn't, but accidents happen on occasion.”
Instead, the CDC says, the “remains should be cremated or buried promptly in a hermetically sealed casket.” The casket must secure “against the escape of microorganisms” and have valid documentation for being airtight.
“There's really not an airtight casket,” said Cavender, who has been in the funeral business for 28 years.
“The sealer caskets that they sell are not a guaranteed-type of sealing issue. It's not completely airtight because you have to have a way to open them up and so forth. It's not like it's vacuum-sealed,” he said.
But the CDC warns that at no point should the sealed bags or casket be opened for viewing.
Duncan had recently traveled to Dallas from West Africa where the World Health Organization estimates that Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people this year. Health officials say traditional African burials, in which family members wash the body, has caused the epidemic to spread faster.
Cavender said he fully supports the CDC’s stringent standards for this country, but knows it could cost a family a proper goodbye.
“Everybody needs to bury their dead and have a funeral and viewing if that’s what they want,” he said. “That's the government saying you can't do that. It's very unfortunate for the family in that case.”
http://i.imgur.com/AOdMX2vl.jpg
DALLAS – What if Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan doesn’t pull through?
It’s something Dallas County leaders don’t want to think about, but it’s a possibility that will present health officials here with a situation they have not experienced: how to handle a body that according to the World Health Organization, could remain highly contagious for several days.
“It’s been discussed, but there’s been no conclusion,” said Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services. “That’s a contingency discussion.”
In early August, medical missionary Kent Brantly became the first U.S. patient to be treated for Ebola after he contracted the disease in West Africa and was transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Soon after, the CDC published a document titled “Guidance for Safe Handling of Human Remains of Ebola Patients in U.S. Hospitals and Mortuaries,” which states that the “handling of human remains should be kept to a minimum.”
Health officials say Duncan, 42, is fighting for his life at Texas Health Presbyterian, where he has been in an isolation ward since Sept. 28. He is in critical but stable condition, on a ventilator, and receiving kidney dialysis. Last weekend he started receiving an experimental drug called brincidofovir.
Seven patients, including Duncan and Brantly, have been or are currently being treated for Ebola or exposure to the virus at U.S. hospitals.
According to federal recommendations, hospital staff should not attempt to clean the deceased or remove any medical lines or tubes. Instead, “the body should be wrapped in a plastic shroud” and immediately placed in two thick and zippered leakproof bags for transport to the morgue.
What this means for family is likely no chance to mourn loved ones at a traditional funeral service.
Dallas County Medical Examiner Dr. Jeffrey Barnard, whose office handles the collection and transportation of corpses, did not immediately return calls seeking comment for this story. An employee who answered the phone at his office declined to say if there was a plan should Duncan pass away.
“I can't give any information out,” the woman told Yahoo News. “I have to end the call.”
Dallas County has been the lead agency for the Ebola investigation and containment in Dallas, but Thompson said his local team would defer to other experts if Duncan succumbs to the disease.
“The state and the CDC will make a recommendation on how the body will be disposed of,” said Thompson, whose office was criticized for being slow to decontaminate the Dallas apartment where Duncan stayed when he arrived in Texas from Liberia.
The CDC recommends autopsies be avoided, and that no embalming be performed.
It’s been a topic of discussion at the Dallas Institute of Funeral Service, where Wayne Cavender is an instructor and administrator.
“Since they don't have a good handle on controlling the disease itself, they are worried about an epidemic,” Cavender told Yahoo News. “So that's one way to help keep it from going further. Because if we embalm, we are going to come in contact with all the body fluids and everything. With universal precautions we shouldn't, but accidents happen on occasion.”
Instead, the CDC says, the “remains should be cremated or buried promptly in a hermetically sealed casket.” The casket must secure “against the escape of microorganisms” and have valid documentation for being airtight.
“There's really not an airtight casket,” said Cavender, who has been in the funeral business for 28 years.
“The sealer caskets that they sell are not a guaranteed-type of sealing issue. It's not completely airtight because you have to have a way to open them up and so forth. It's not like it's vacuum-sealed,” he said.
But the CDC warns that at no point should the sealed bags or casket be opened for viewing.
Duncan had recently traveled to Dallas from West Africa where the World Health Organization estimates that Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people this year. Health officials say traditional African burials, in which family members wash the body, has caused the epidemic to spread faster.
Cavender said he fully supports the CDC’s stringent standards for this country, but knows it could cost a family a proper goodbye.
“Everybody needs to bury their dead and have a funeral and viewing if that’s what they want,” he said. “That's the government saying you can't do that. It's very unfortunate for the family in that case.”