UNMC and Nebraska Medicine were recognized this week when the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the US Department of Health and Human Services visited the campus.
Dr. Robert Kadlec, whose specialty is preparedness for infectious disease outbreaks, toured the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit – where three patients with Ebola were treated in 2014.
Kadlec commended the dedication of the UNMC/Nebraska Medicine teams who treated these three patients.
“You could see in the eyes of the physicians and nurses who I spoke to that treating people, particularly with a dire disease that is expected to have high mortality, that they did so with great compassion and care, that they gave it their all. Particularly if you remember how scary the circumstance was; when others were running away, they were running basically to offer their help.”
Kadlec also visited a training class where health professionals from 25 states have been trained to treat patients exposed to infectious diseases such as Ebola.
In 2016, UNMC received a nearly $20 million grant from the US Department of HHS to help develop the National Training, Simulation and Quarantine Center. It will be run by the UNMC Global Center for Health Security. As well as a treatment site, it is where federal employees will be trained to treat highly infectious diseases.
For more information, the website is UNMC.edu