Nurses' Union Cites lack of Protocol in Ebola Care

National Nurses United, the largest nurses' union in the U.S., said that their colleagues who treated Liberian Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan worked for days without proper protective gear and had to face frequent changes in protocols.

In a statement released late Tuesday, the Union said that Duncan was left in an open area of the emergency room of the Texas Health Presbyterian hospital for many hours.

The Ebola patient's lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospitals pneumatic tubes, which may have contaminated the specimen delivery system, the nurses alleged.  The hospital also allowed hazardous waste to pile up to the ceiling, they said, reports the Associated Press.

Deborah Burger of the National Nurses United said that nurses were forced to make use of medical tapes to secure openings in their flimsy clothes, anxious that their necks and heads were uncovered while they were giving care to a patient with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting.

"Were protocols breached?" said union spokeswoman Rose Ann DeMoro, "There were no protocols."

"These nurses are not well protected. They're not prepared to handle Ebola or any other pandemic." "We are deeply alarmed," she said, reports CBS News.

DeMoro said that nurses who had come forward feared to disclose their identities "because of a culture of threat in the hospitals."

Responding to the allegations, the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital issued a statement saying that the greatest priority of the hospital was patient and employee safety.

It further said that the hospital had numerous measures to provide a safe working environment.

However, the hospital would continue to respond to any concerns raised by the nurses and employees, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, admitted that the government did not do enough to contain the virus as it spread from an infected patient to a nurse at the Dallas hospital.

"We could've sent a more robust hospital infection control team and been more hands-on with the hospital from day one about exactly how this should be managed," Frieden said, reports AP.