Dear Mr. hospital administrator: you know that ebola patient at the triage window? Good luck with that.

The thing about the ebola crisis is that nurses are at the mercy of hospitals that worry more about the bottom line than they do their own workers. They are playing the odds.  What are the odds that a patient will come into our hospital?  Near zero. Therefore, we won't spend the money on training and isolation suits that are needed.It would be a waste of our money.  We will cover our butts by saying we are "following CDC guidelines".

We will make the training voluntary. We will tell the staff basically: all you have to do is put the patient in isolation and all of our experts we have on call will come to your area and take over. Never fear. We got this.

So here is how I interpret this: When the patient appears at the triage window, I give them a mask to put on. I take them immediately to the designated room.  On the way to the room, I get their name and birthdate. I put them in the room.  I put them in the computer.  Then I call the hospital experts and wait for them to come. I note in the computer that the patient  has no respiratory distress, able to walk independently to room, etc.  In other words, they aren't near eminent death.  I also note that they have been placed in the room and experts called per protocol.

Then we wait, because if you think that I am doing anything beyond that, you are fooling yourself Mr. hospital administrator.  If you aren't going to train me and give me proper equipment, that will be the extent of my involvement.  Good luck with that.