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Nurse's Union Speaks Out; Is CDC Doing Enough to Beat Ebola?; ISIS Poised to Attack Large Iraqi Airbase

Aired October 15, 2014 - 07:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Nurses are steaming mad after this latest case of Ebola diagnosed in Texas Presbyterian. It is another health care worker, someone who's risk -- life is now at risk because they were trying to save someone else.

They're angry about had they say is a lack of protocol when Thomas Eric Duncan was being treated. Now frustrations are building as nurses try to insure their own safety.

So let's bring in Karen Higgins on the phone. She is co-president of the National Nurses United. She's an intensive care nurse at Boston Medical Center and she represents the union really that tries to protect nurses. Can you hear us?

KAREN HIGGINS, CO-PRESIDENT, NATIONAL NURSES UNITED (via telephone): Yes, I can, no problem.

CUOMO: So from your perspective, now it's been two different nurses who have gotten Ebola from trying to save a life. Do you believe this needed to happen and if not, why?

HIGGINS: No, it didn't need to happen and it shouldn't have happened. It's really seriously time to have CDC take a stand with these hospitals, because what they're being told is every hospital is ready and they can accept these patients and provide care.

And in reality, what is going on is exactly what happened in Dallas, is that you know, it's good, words out of your mouth, but in actual -- you know, what do you have, what is the equipment that's available. They need to make a stand and say -- you know what, no more having protocols that keep changing. They keep adjusting.

Still are not protecting the health care workers. They need to make a stand and say you know what, there is mandatory equipment that CDC uses, that we want, and we want to have it in our hospitals. So that if a patient shows up, that we know we are protected, taking care of that patient and --

CUOMO: Who is "they"? I think it's important for who is they, who do you believe is in charge there? Is this about the CDC? Is it about the people from the state? Is it about the people running the hospital? And just to be clear, the second health care worker who has the virus, we don't know that they're a nurse. But so many are doing the same jobs there that the criticism goes to all of it in terms of who is being protected. But who is "they?"

HIGGINS: Well, I think "they" is all of them. I think the CDC has to take responsibility. They're the ones that have accepted that the hospitals keep telling them they're ready. I think it is public health in the states that have to take responsibility.

Because they're in the states, they need to know that these hospitals are prepared, and absolutely, the hospitals, absolutely. You know, it is -- we are hearing from nurses across this country.

No way do they feel that they are ready to take Ebola patients and yet we continue to hear the hospitals repeat, repeat, yes, we are. It's shameful.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and Karen, to your point, the litany of complaints that the nurses in Dallas have had, they've come -- they've made them public this morning and they are eyebrow raising.

Number one, Thomas Duncan was kept in a non-isolated area of the emergency department. We knew that, for several hours, potentially exposing many other patients. Number two, patients who may have been exposed to Duncan were kept in isolation only for a day afterwards before being moved to other areas of the hospital.

Number three, nurses treating Duncan were also caring for other patients in the hospital at the same time. Number four, listen to this one, Karen, preparation for Ebola at the Dallas Presbyterian Hospital amounted to little more than an optional seminar for staff.

Number five in the face of constantly shifting guidelines, nurses were allowed to follow whichever ones they chose. How can nurses feel safe today with what they might be facing with Ebola?

HIGGINS: Well, that's the problem. I would say to you, isn't it shameful what happened in Dallas? I can guarantee you this would happen in most of the hospitals across the country, given what the nurses are saying. This is what I'm saying it has to stop.

It's not fair, not just for nurses, for anyone in the hospital that will have contact with that patient. The right precautions have to be taken and somebody has to take a stand and say we have to have the highest standard of protection we possibly can.

I am an ICU nurse. I have no problem taking care of a patient with Ebola. As long as you provide me the safest equipment and allow me to go into the room knowing that I am safe. That you've done everything possible to keep me safe and that's not happening in the hospitals across the country.

CUOMO: What are you hearing about what the nurses are saying at this hospital? HIGGINS: Well, you know, I was not in on the conversation that they had. But I think obviously they're very scared and they're very upset. And they felt like they were basically, right from the beginning, which was really upsetting, is that the finger-pointing was at them right away.

They're the ones that were at fault because they didn't do the right thing. They did do the right thing. They were taking care of the patient. The hospital was not doing the right thing and that was taking care of the employees there and making sure they were safe.

CAMEROTA: Karen why do you feel so confident this morning in Boston?

HIGGINS: Why do I feel confident?

CAMEROTA: Yes, you said you could, you're prepared for anything as long as you have the right equipment. So you're still at work and you feel as though you will be prepared for whatever you encounter.

HIGGINS: Well, I'm hoping I would say to you, do I feel really confident? I don't feel really confident at this point. I feel like things are now due to what's happening in Dallas. I would say that our facility is taking much stronger steps to provide much more safety equipment and much more better equipment than they had.

Do I, you know, until I actually see it and actually go, make sure that we're not just seeing it, that we're being taught and setting out hopefully programs that we will do one-on-one teaching of how to get in and out of this equipment safely and keep people from being contaminated. That is the next part.

It's not just having the equipment, it is investing and making sure we all know how to use it safely. I'm saying, you do that and I will be OK. You don't do that, and that's right, you're putting all of us in the same position you put those Dallas nurses in. And that is not acceptable and that should not happen.

CAMEROTA: I understood. Thank you for explaining all that. Karen Higgins, thanks for being with us. Best of luck, we will talk to you again.

HIGGINS: Thank you, bye-bye.

CAMEROTA: All right, more on the breaking news straight ahead. Is the CDC doing enough to help hospitals keep health care workers safe? It doesn't sound like it. Should the Obama administration therefore be doing more? We'll break all of this down next.

CUOMO: Also Dallas health officials are getting set to brief you on this latest case, we're going to have reporters there. This will happen at top of the hour, we'll bring it to you live and you can hear from them if they think they're getting the job done and what needs to happen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAMEROTA: We do have breaking news this morning. A second Texas health care worker who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan is infected with Ebola and in the spotlight this morning, the CDC, the NIH and of course, the Obama administration, did they do enough? Did they do it soon enough to stop the spread or contain this virus.

So let's bring in CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Ana Navarro, and CNN political commentator and editor in chief of the "Daily Beast," John Avlon. Thanks so much for being here.

Ana, let me start with you. Critics of the president say that he should have done more sooner. We just heard from Congressman Pete Sessions in Texas who said the administration has been not proactive enough. What do you think?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that may be true, but I'm not sure this is time for the blame game. There will be plenty of time to dissect what could have been done and should have been done earlier afterwards.

I think right now it's time to pull together as a country and our government -- we need our government leaders, our congress and our administrative leaders to pull together and get a plan implemented and execute that plan to address what is an urgent issue.

If this disintegrates into a political blame game where Democrats are saying it is the Republicans' fault that they didn't fund the NIH and Republicans are saying, you know, President Obama has been playing the violin while Rome is burning. We are not going to get anything done. We need to get the issue addressed and then we can blame each other.

CUOMO: But the illness in D.C. makes a Ebola looks like a paper cut. It gets to the urgent question right now, John, who's in charge? Because you know that hospital in Texas is now inundated with alphabet soup, NIH, CDC, the White House, everybody is leaving meetings and making phone calls and come back with new instructions, who is leading?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is the problem when you do have these overlapping jurisdictions. You've got a panicked environment and no one clearly in charge. The head of the CDC, Tom Frieden seems to be the point person for the administration.

John McCain, the other day uncharacteristically called pre-czar. We all know we don't have a surgeon general in place because the nominee hasn't been voted on by the Senate. So that adds to the confusion, not only communicating to the American people, but also on the ground more importantly.

Now you have the CDC also admitting that basically this hospital wasn't really prepared in terms of protocols. This is where Duncan ended up. So we're dealing with the circumstance now. I appreciate the reasonable Republican to my right here saying we shouldn't politicize it.

But we all know, you know, two, three weeks from election, this is getting politicized now and the chaos compounds the problem.

NAVARRO: Just because we shouldn't politicize it, doesn't mean we shouldn't act and have a plan. It does feel like we are behind the 8- ball. Three weeks ago, I flew to Nicaragua, second poorest country in the hemisphere. What they're doing now in the United States when people come in from Africa, they were doing in Nicaragua three weeks ago.

Wanting you with a noncontact thermometer and asking to you fill out a very lengthy questionnaire about how you felt, what your symptoms were. The United States started doing it one dead Ebola patient later. Why are we so behind the 8-ball on all of this?

CAMEROTA: What about that claim? There should have been a point person? There should have been someone in charge. It's always interesting when Republicans say we need another czar. Obviously they often claim the federal government is too big and we don't need more bureaucrats running around. Has there been an absence of somebody spearheading this or has it fallen in the lap of the CDC and that's where it belongs?

NAVARRO: I think there's an absence of a clear leader in charge and somebody who can put all the different heads of the dragon together and speaks and coordinates the interagency task forces, that's one of the hardest jobs you can have in government, a coordinator of all different agencies who all want to be in charge.

AVLON: But it's absolutely essential in any emergency response situation. That's why you sometimes have agencies like the Office of Emergency Management get created to specifically coordinate with agencies.

CAMEROTA: So then why is the president nail it to them?

AVLON: I think the president you're going to see further action on this. There's a panic going on that we need to cool while confronting the reality of the situation. We haven't had a potential pandemic like this in the United States for a while.

This has been brewing in West Africa for months. The international community as well as the United States didn't get on it soon enough. Now responding, the administration has taken proactive action.

We've got troops on the way to West Africa to try to contain this. This will take innovation. It's going to take focus. It's all happening so close to an election that silly season will compound this.

CUOMO: Well, I think that's where we should shift to because a lot of this will be about the election. And to be very clear, talking to all the experts, and that's what we do all the time here. There's no reason to believe we have even a potential pandemic on our hands.

The people who are getting sick are the people who are treating the sick. It not spreading the way it is in West Africa. They don't believe it will. We still have to get it right. That does take us to the politicizing of this with the midterms coming up and what do you think, Ana, in terms of when we look big-bowl. The midterms are coming up, setting up for 2016.

Mitt Romney, yes, he's given money and as John Avlon said very well many times, people like his money so please come. Do you really think he's going to wind up being the man again?

NAVARRO: I don't. I think this is such a, one of these media-fed continuing narratives. The man has said no every which way. Now his wife has said no every which way.

CAMEROTA: Let me show you what his wife said. We do have a full screen of her quote because I think she puts a fine point on it. Here we go. Done period. Completely, period. Not only Mitt and I are done. But the kids are done. Done. Done. Done.

NAVARRO: If you know anything about the Romney family. Don't know anything about dynamic. Let me just tell you this. If Anne Romney says they're done, they're done. Can you put a fork in that, it's done.

AVLON: Even if you don't know Anne Romney, that's six "dones" in 12 words. That's a lot of "done."

NAVARRO: He's in a wonderful position right now. Everything he has said during the campaign that people laughed at has turned out to be true, right, Russia, the Middle East. He now is the most sought-after surrogate and fundraiser for any Republican running. Everybody wants him around. He's got the golden touch.

CUOMO: Will he go visit, here's the big question --

NAVARRO: Even I like Mitt Romney now. I want him to come to Florida as much as he can.

CUOMO: And that will be the key question. We're going to leave it hanging. Will Mitt Romney meet and help Jeb Bush coming up? We know Ana Navarro. If he goes to visit him, then you know he doesn't have his eyes on the prize because he'll be dealing directly with someone who very well may. Ana Navarro, John Avlon, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

We'll give you more on the breaking news in just minutes because officials are going to set their own news conference. They'll come out and deal directly with this in Dallas. They'll face reporters and questions from people like you. What do they know? What don't they know? We'll find out.

CAMEROTA: Plus another top story, ISIS advancing towards a key air base near Baghdad. How immediate is the danger to the Iraqi capital. We have all the latest for you.

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MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to NEW DAY. We want to turn overseas now, ISIS forces now in prime position to carry out an attack on one of Iraq's largest airbases, a very key airbase. There are fighters now surrounding a key military airbase about 110 miles northeast of Baghdad in Anbar Province, already mostly overrun by the militants.

President Obama's vowing to continue airstrikes against the terrorist group after meeting with coalition forces saying the effort to dismantle ISIS is a long-term campaign.

We want to talk about it all with our CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, something we've been cautioned about that it is going to be a long campaign.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. Long-term campaign, at that meeting yesterday with 22 international defense chiefs, a message came out after the meeting and what these defense chiefs said is while they believe they have the strategic advantage, the big picture long-term advantage over ISIS.

Right now ISIS has the advantage on the grouped and you see that at that airbase, you're talking about, the al-Assad airbase, west of Baghdad, this is a large base. The U.S. was there in considerable presence during the war.

Now ISIS fighters said to be surrounding that base, preparing to attack, preparing to take it. If they take the al Assad airbase this will give them more weapons, more territory, more capability to launch new attacks.

The U.S. still continuing the airstrikes, but the question is what is happening on the ground? The real problem right now many will tell you is Iraqi forces still unable to launch a counter offensive against ISIS, despite a dozen U.S. advisory teams on the ground trying to help them. The Iraqis just not able to get the job done -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Yes, there have been concerns about their abilities and their resources. Barbara Starr, thank you so much for that -- Chris.

CUOMO: Now a lot of what we're hearing this morning in terms of anger and frustration has been driven by nurses, the shocking allegations because of what's happening, they say, at a Texas hospital, where two people are now infected with the virus.

Wait until you hear what "protocols," in quotes, they say were ignored by the staff or not taught properly. It's coming up in a live report along with a news conference in Dallas right after the break. Stay with us.

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CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome back to NEW DAY. Chris Cuomo joined by Alisyn Camerota. We do have new fears taking hold in Dallas now that a second health care worker has been diagnosed with Ebola. The worker reported a high fever last night and is in isolation this morning at Texas Presbyterian Hospital once again. CAMEROTA: And now nurses at the facility are going public with stunning claims about the lack of Ebola protocols inside their facility. Wait until you hear the litany of things that went wrong, they say. We'll get the latest in a news conference from Dallas in just a moment for you.

Our coverage begins there with senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. What is the latest, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, I think the numbers say a lot. This hospital in Dallas, Texas Health Presbyterian, they treated one patient with Ebola and two workers got sick. In Atlanta and in Nebraska, they collectively treated five patients and no workers get sick. So now people are asking questions, what happened at this hospital?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (voice-over): Breaking this morning, only four days after critical care nurse, Nina Pham was found to be infected with Ebola a second health care worker has been diagnosed with the deadly disease. The hospital staffer at Texas Health Presbyterian is one of the 76 health care workers who provided care for the now deceased Ebola patient, Thomas Duncan.

According to the hospital the staffer was immediately isolated after an initial report of a fever Tuesday. The CDC says they have interviewed the patient to identify any contacts or potential exposures in the community.