Ebola equipment practice needed for health workers

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Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health says front-line workers need time to practice using special equipment designed to protect them from Ebola.

Dr. Robert Strang said the province's health officials had little to do with a rehearsal by the Public Health Agency of Canada, which sent a team from Ottawa to run through Ebola protocols with local health officials, including the proper way to put on and take off protective gear and how to handle laboratory protocols.

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Strang said local officials were only told of the plan Saturday afternoon and the federal team arrived Sunday.

He added the people who will be providing care need time to get comfortable with the tools and equipment.

"We have the right equipment and procedures in place but what we know is that we need the health-care providers to actually be providing care for an Ebola patient," Strang told CBC's Maritime Noon.

"We need to do a lot of practice so they are very comfortable with using especially the personal protective equipment, because it's errors in that which are leading to transmission of Ebola in North American health-care facilities."

Strang said although Nova Scotia's participation in the federal team's run through was limited, he thinks it would be good for Maritime health officials to practise with the federal team.

"We didn't have time to pull all that together. I have, certainly, suggested that to the federal government with enough time to plan that we would be very interested," said Strang.

"Even from a Maritime perspective involving New Brunswick and P.E.I. even, potentially, have an exercise that went all the way from somebody showing up in an emergency room to us asking for help from the federal government, but it would take a bit of time to plan something like that to do it well."

Strang said most of the rehearsal for the rapid response team ended Sunday.