SACRAMENTO-
A patient who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus is being treated at the Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center.
The patient is being kept in an isolated negative pressure room while specialists work to confirm or rule out an Ebola infection. The process may take several days.
According to the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services says all appropriate protocols are being followed.
The state Department of Public Health described the patient as “low-risk,” and that there were no confirmed cases of Ebola anywhere in California.
In a written statement, Kaiser Permanente spokesman Marc Brown said, “In order to protect our patients, staff and physicians, even though infection with the virus is unconfirmed, we are taking the actions recommended by the CDC as a precaution, just as we do for other patients with a suspected infectious disease.”
Those precautions include isolating the patient in a negative pressure room, and ensuring that trained staff members use personal protective equipment in coordination with infectious disease specialists, allowing care to be provided in a setting that safeguards other patients and medical teams, according to Kaiser.
Some hospital visitors were frustrated Tuesday night, saying Kaiser should have released more information about the possilbe ebola case.
“They should’ve let us know so we can take action upon ourselves instead of hearing it from you guys,” hospital visitor, Tami Treadwell, told FOX40. “We should’ve heard it from the horses mouth.”
Patient privacy regulations prevent the hospital from releasing personal information like the patient’s name, age, and gender.
But some hospital visitors had other questions on their minds regarding the time frame and procedures surrounding the patient’s admittance. “Has he been around other people before he was quarantined?” Deanna Stordahl wondered aloud outside the hospital.
The information from Kaiser and the Sacramento County Department of Public Health came in the form of written statements Tuesday evening. FOX40 will be seeking additional information on Wednesday.
Two Americans were confirmed to have contracted the virus last month in Liberia. They are being treated in Atlanta.
The Centers for Disease Control say the 2014 Ebola outbreak is one of the largest in West Africa’s history.
Symptoms of the virus include fever, severe headache, muscle pain and weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and loss of appetite.
