Coalition: Ebola Patient's Waste Mishandled

The Dallas hospital that is treating the Liberian Ebola patient should be able to sterilize its waste on site or the patient should be transported to a hospital that has that capability, Healthcare Coalition for Emergency Preparedness Executive Director Darrell Henry said Monday on Newsmax TV's "America's Forum."

"Certain diseases that are highly deadly that don't have a cure are called category A diseases and because of that DOT (the Department of Transportation) has a higher standard for shipping," Henry said. "It's a hazardous material, only certain people can handle it and it's not supposed to be moved. It should be dealt with and treated there on the site where the infection is so we're not putting other people in danger."

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The Department of Transportation has strict guidelines about transporting medical waste. Some 80 percent of hospital waste is shipped to remote facilities, a big change from 30 years ago when almost all medical waste was disposed of on site, according to Henry.

There now are only about 1,000 hospitals who can deal with waste on site.

Officials mishandled the apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Duncan stayed before being admitted to the hospital, he said. Duncan was vomiting and had diarrhea while in the apartment, which was occupied by other adults and children.

"How you catch Ebola is by touching or coming in contact with bodily fluids," he explained. "The definition of Ebola waste are items that are soaked saturated, been in contact with those bodily fluids. Those are infectious disease transmitting materials. This is a really dangerous situation at play there. There were some easy solutions that could've been done right away. First, getting the family out of the apartment and put them into a place where all of the waste, any of the materials in contact with them could've been immediately disinfected. Secondly, once you have people out of there, then you can take your time to clean it up and do it the right way. Bring in materials to sterilize it and disinfect it before you start moving the stuff out of the apartment."

Henry said he's concerned that the more people who potentially come in contact with the waste, "the more exposure people have to it, the longer it sits out there, the more dangerous it is."

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