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Amid Concern About Ebola Virus in U.S., New York Hospital Says It’s Ready for the Worst

Dr. Nate Link, medical director at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York, and other staff members showed the isolation ward and protective gear for treating suspected Ebola patients.Credit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

A nurse came out in gloves, a surgical mask, goggles and an impenetrable gown made of the medically ubiquitous periwinkle blue mesh. It was the standard outfit for treating infectious patients at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.

But it looked almost casual compared with the gear worn by another staff member: a full Tyvek body suit, a surgical gown over the body suit, boots, surgical mesh over the boots, gloves and a hood with a plastic guard over the face and covering the top of the head with built-in ventilation (known as a P.A.P.R., a powered air-purifying respirator). No skin was exposed, and everything was covered in impervious material.

That was the uniform for anyone coming in contact with an Ebola patient’s bodily fluids.

On Wednesday, amid concern about the possibility of Ebola’s spread in the United States and particularly within hospitals, Bellevue officials showed off their isolation rooms and their leave-no-skin-cell-uncovered precautions in an attempt to reassure New Yorkers that should the virus arrive here, the city’s premier public hospital could handle it.

Dr. Ross Wilson, the chief medical officer for the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which oversees the city’s public health facilities, said Bellevue could treat up to four patients with confirmed cases of Ebola in isolation units. They have sliding glass doors that let nurses monitor the patient without entering the room, and private bathrooms and the necessary medical equipment so that a patient who needs intensive care can be treated in the room rather than having to be moved to the intensive care unit. The hospital has nine other isolation rooms that could have the equipment installed if the need arose.

Though other public and private hospitals have isolation rooms, patients suspected of having Ebola who arrive at Kennedy Airport will be sent to Bellevue, Dr. Wilson said. On Wednesday, the day of the first Ebola death in the United States, the federal government announced it would begin screening passengers arriving from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone at five airports, including Kennedy and Newark Liberty International Airport, indicating that though the disease has not become widespread in this country, the emergency response to the epidemic has.

Dr. Wilson said it was highly unlikely that New York would see a confirmed case of Ebola but that the hospital was preparing its staff and its facilities in the event that it does.

Any gear that comes into contact with an Ebola patient will be placed in a machine that heats items to a very high temperature, sterilizing them. Once they have been sterilized, they can be disposed of like normal medical waste, hospital officials said.

Dr. Wilson said Bellevue would be employing independent observers to make sure that hospital workers were taking off contaminated protective clothing properly, to reduce the risk of infection. He said a nurse in Spain who contracted Ebola after caring for a patient who died from it may have gotten the virus while changing out of her suit.

A spokeswoman for the Health and Hospitals Corporation said Bellevue would be cleaning the isolation rooms according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Those guidelines say “a broad range of hospital disinfectants” could be used but they also recommend “selection of a disinfectant product with a higher potency than what is normally required.”

Dr. Wilson said the hospital had also set up a lab near the isolation rooms for testing the blood of suspected Ebola patients so that it does not contaminate other lab supplies or have to travel in the hospital.

Nurses at the hospital said they had been taught what symptoms to watch for and what precautions to take.

“My mom is calling me all the time saying, ‘Be careful!,’ ” said a nurse who declined to be identified because she was not authorized to speak publicly. “But I tell her, in our walk of life, you deal with this every day. I’m used to it.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Amid Concern About Virus in U.S., New York Hospital Says It’s Ready for the Worst. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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