Pham, a 26-year-old critical care nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, was diagnosed with Ebola on Sunday after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who last month became the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
Pham and Amber Joy Vinson, the other Ebola-infected nurse, were among 76 hospital workers who treated Duncan before his death.
Vinson, 29, was transferred Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. According to NBC News, Pham, who is being treated in isolation at the Dallas hospital, could be flown to the Bethesda, Maryland, hospital, as early as Thursday.
The Atlanta and Bethesda facilities are two of four in the United States specially equipped to handle Ebola.
According to WFAA-TV, Pham's family did not request her to be moved, but were told a "lack of staffing" necessitated it.
Pham, a Fort Worth, Texas, native and 2010 graduate of Texas Christian University, released a statement thanking well-wishers on Tuesday, saying she is "doing well." She was listed in good condition by the hospital on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Briana Aguirre, a Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse who helped treat Pham, sharply criticized the facility for its handling of Duncan, saying staffers never discussed Ebola prior to his arrival.
“We never talked about Ebola and we probably should have,” Aguirre said on NBC's "Today" show on Thursday. "They gave us an optional seminar to go to. Just informational, not hands on. It wasn’t even suggested we go ... We were never told what to look for.”
When Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola on Sept. 30, Aguirre said there was confusion about how to handle the case. “It was just a little chaotic scene," she said. "Our infectious disease department was contacted to ask, 'What is our protocol?' And [the] answer was, 'We don’t know. We’re going to have to call you back.'"
On Tuesday, National Nurses United said several nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian complained of similar confusion.
"There was no advance preparedness on what to do with the patient, there was no protocol, there was no system," the group said in a statement.
Late Wednesday, a top official at Texas Health Presbyterian issued an apology for his facility’s “mistakes” in handling the highly contagious disease.
“Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr. Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly skilled medical team, we made mistakes,” Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer of the hospital’s parent chain Texas Health Resources, said in a statement. “We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry.”
Varga said the hospital followed all federal and state guidelines to protect staff and others from Duncan, who died Oct. 8 after 10 days in isolation.
“It’s clear there was an exposure somewhere, sometime,” his statement said. “We are poring over records and observations, and doing all we can to find the answers.”
Varga added that Texas Health Presbyterian had already instituted a number of fixes, including an Ebola “refresher course” for emergency department staffers.
