Urgent-care clinics ill-equipped to treat Ebola

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new concern over the spread of Ebola surfaced recently when a Dallas County sheriff’s deputy who searched the apartment of the first patient to die from the virus in the U.S. started feeling ill and went to an urgent-care center.

The clinics popping up rapidly across the nation aren’t designed to treat serious illnesses and are ill-equipped to deal with suspected Ebola cases.

Doctors are urging patients to avoid smaller medical facilities and head to emergency rooms if they think they’ve been exposed to the virus that has put a focus on weak spots in the U.S. health care system.

“Patients have a difficult time deciding where they need to go for care” but hospitals are best for serious problems, Dr. William Gluckman said.

The Dallas County deputy was transferred to a hospital this month where he tested negative for Ebola. Clinics, meanwhile, have rushed to prepare with new training manuals and protective gear. But most lack essentials like isolation units, said Gluckman of the Urgent Care Association of America, which represents more than 2,600 of the nation’s 9,000 urgent-care centers.

Given the problems at the Dallas hospital where Thomas Eric Duncan died and two nurses were diagnosed with the virus, experts say an Ebola case at a clinic or smaller facility could have been worse.