CHANGE: Ebola Quarantines Seen As Barrier To Volunteers.
Yeah, well, this is kind of a barrier, too: Bellevue staffers call in ‘sick’ after Ebola arrives.
An extraordinary number of Bellevue Hospital staffers called in sick on Friday rather than treat the city’s first Ebola patient — and those who showed up were terrified to enter his isolation chamber, sources told The Post.
“The nurses on the floor are miserable with a ‘why me?’ attitude, scared to death and overworked because all their co-workers called out sick,” one source said.
“One nurse even went as far as to pretend she was having a stroke to get out of working there, but once they cleared her in the ER they sent her back up,” the source added.
Dr. Craig Spencer is being treated by nurses working in teams of two, “with one serving as a buddy watching the other,” said Health and Hospitals Corporation spokeswoman Ana Marengo, who denied there was a sickout.
The Doctors Without Borders volunteer — who is in stable condition — has even been putting his medical skills to use, lecturing the staff about proper treatment.
Well, I’d take his safety advice with a grain of salt. . . .