Thread: Ebola

To me, common sense dictates that in this day & age, there should be a facility available in the U.S. that is set aside from these type of problems, that can handle a hundred or more patients at a time. with the ability to reach & extract them within2 to 3 hours tops. I would have no problem putting my tax dollars into a facility like this, that just sits with a full staff waiting.

The fact that we have a handful of hospitals in the entire country that can handle one or two at a time is ridiculous.
I'm not knocking the aid worker, just the damn failed bureaucracy, plagued with self serving individuals.

Apparently there is a problem with the aid workers in Dallas Hospital, they are about to mutiny,,,, that's why there was a transfer of the patent. It appears that they are tired of being lied to also.

Originally Posted by Suile

Ha you should be looking at northwest NV I already got 20 arces paids for.
to start a farming operation to protect me self from the coming hyperinflation.
Was learning stuff about laws Government has had a lien on us Americans for their
loans since 1933. So we should all put the legal us and our big assets into a chariable trust.
So when they default if they do but they could make the money worthless preventing it.

Just sold a 20 acre plot outside Winnimuca at a major loss. cannot grow anything in Nevada except sagebrush

Originally Posted by Hirlau

Answer, with a question,, prior to Patient 0 hitting the U.S., what was the protocol in dealing with this particular virus? There wasn't one in writting. Yes, there are several individuals who are educated on the Ebola virus itsself, but no "protocol" ,,"plan" on how to handle it at our front door.

1. Hours, before the CDC could make contact with the Patient 0 in Texas.
2. A contaminated scene at his home not secured properly
3. The medical team at Dallas Hospital had no "written protocol " from the CDC on this particular virus to follow,
thus two of their workers now have Ebola.
4. One of the workers contacts CDC & asks about traveling, after contact with patient 0, she got approval because her temperature was .9 degrees under the threshold,,, Really ???? The CDC admitts wrong decision, the other day.
5. The patients with Ebola now, are spread out in hospitals, we don't have a facility now, it appears, that can handle more than 2 at a time.
,,,, we could go on,,,,,

Of the 5 items that you cite, the only one that I believe can be legitimately laid at the CDC's feet is #4; and they've already stated that they erred on that issue.

As for your other points:
1 & 2: While you're correct that there were unacceptable delays, they fall squarely on the local (city, county, state) health departments. The fact that the CDC was able to respond in only a matter of hours is actually pretty amazing... especially when you consider their staffing levels.
3: Every...again, EVERY hospital in the US uses what are called "Universal Precautions" to both protect their staffs and prevent transmission or spread of communicable diseases. Those precautions are the first line of defense, regardless of whether you're dealing with Ebola, influenza, or multiply drug resistant staph aureus. Furthermore, the CDC publishes disease specific protocols which are available on its website, and sends out alert bulletins both for more routine and unusual diseases whenever they crop up. I also wonder why the hospital wasn't better prepared, but I can't see how the CDC is to blame.
5: The CDC has nothing to do with hospital capabilities.

I encourage you to go on...

Originally Posted by Hirlau

To me, common sense dictates that in this day & age, there should be a facility available in the U.S. that is set aside from these type of problems, that can handle a hundred or more patients at a time. with the ability to reach & extract them within2 to 3 hours tops. I would have no problem putting my tax dollars into a facility like this, that just sits with a full staff waiting.

The fact that we have a handful of hospitals in the entire country that can handle one or two at a time is ridiculous.
I'm not knocking the aid worker, just the damn failed bureaucracy, plagued with self serving individuals.

Apparently there is a problem with the aid workers in Dallas Hospital, they are about to mutiny,,,, that's why there was a transfer of the patent. It appears that they are tired of being lied to also.

I agree that it would make a certain amount of sense to have a facility such you describe. And I applaud your willingness to help fund it. But the reality is that you are in a minority.

Let's look at a more "every day" example of what I mean: there was a time when military hospitals set aside entire wings and were staffed to be ready to receive casualties of war... something that rears its head with alarming regularity. But this admittedly expensive practice has been deemed wasteful and inefficient. So now military health care personnel are being downsized, and many of those "extra beds" have disappeared, even though we still go to war, and we still incur casualties. So my point is this: if we are unwilling to fund a solution to a well-known and frequently recurring situation...war casualties... something as rare and "science fictiony" as a serious infectious disease outbreak simply doesn't stand a chance.

Your comment about there being so few hospitals capable of dealing with something like Ebola intrigues me. I'm unsure where you were going with that thought, but it raises some interesting points about hospitals in the US:

[From the Becker Hospital Review, using 2013 AHA Statistics]

1. There are 5,724 hospitals in the U.S., according to the American Hospital Association.

2. Of these, 2,903 hospitals are nonprofit and 1,025 are for-profit. Additionally, 1,045 are owned by state or local (county, hospital district) government entities.

3. Of all hospitals in the U.S., 1,984, or 35 percent, serve rural communities and are considered rural hospitals.

Given this structure... note that no federal hospitals are listed (as far as I know, military hospitals are the only ones that fall under federal jurisdiction)... who can foot the bill for a hospital that spends most of its time in standby mode? The for-profit hospitals sure won't do it unless someone pays them for it. The non-profits sure can't do it on a large scale, even if they wanted to. And all those rural hospitals, most of which have little or no budgetary flexibility, can't do it either. The ones that do have the needed capabilities tend to be academic hospitals with significant research activities, or hospitals that specialize in infectious disease (and there aren't many of those!)

Personally, I think that a federally funded hospital makes the most sense. But try to get that idea past the fiscal conservatives!

Originally Posted by BobH

People today are supposed to be better educated and more informed that ever before. Hard to believe that after seeing this. It would be hilarious if the potential consequences were not so serious and deadly. The dumb as a bag of hammers gene is alive and well in the human gene pool.

Bob

"Stupid should hurt more" .........never get tired of that gem.

Originally Posted by Dzanda

I agree that it would make a certain amount of sense to have a facility such you describe. And I applaud your willingness to help fund it. But the reality is that you are in a minority.

Let's look at a more "every day" example of what I mean: there was a time when military hospitals set aside entire wings and were staffed to be ready to receive casualties of war... something that rears its head with alarming regularity. But this admittedly expensive practice has been deemed wasteful and inefficient. So now military health care personnel are being downsized, and many of those "extra beds" have disappeared, even though we still go to war, and we still incur casualties. So my point is this: if we are unwilling to fund a solution to a well-known and frequently recurring situation...war casualties... something as rare and "science fictiony" as a serious infectious disease outbreak simply doesn't stand a chance.

Your comment about there being so few hospitals capable of dealing with something like Ebola intrigues me. I'm unsure where you were going with that thought, but it raises some interesting points about hospitals in the US:

[From the Becker Hospital Review, using 2013 AHA Statistics]

1. There are 5,724 hospitals in the U.S., according to the American Hospital Association.

2. Of these, 2,903 hospitals are nonprofit and 1,025 are for-profit. Additionally, 1,045 are owned by state or local (county, hospital district) government entities.

3. Of all hospitals in the U.S., 1,984, or 35 percent, serve rural communities and are considered rural hospitals.

Given this structure... note that no federal hospitals are listed (as far as I know, military hospitals are the only ones that fall under federal jurisdiction)... who can foot the bill for a hospital that spends most of its time in standby mode? The for-profit hospitals sure won't do it unless someone pays them for it. The non-profits sure can't do it on a large scale, even if they wanted to. And all those rural hospitals, most of which have little or no budgetary flexibility, can't do it either. The ones that do have the needed capabilities tend to be academic hospitals with significant research activities, or hospitals that specialize in infectious disease (and aren't of those!)

Personally, I think that a federally funded hospital makes the most sense. But try to get that idea past the fiscal conservatives!

Quoting me stats & telling me what can't be done,,, by showing me the current &*^$ed up state of affairs in the medical field,,,, accomplishes nothing,,,,

I applaud your time put into responding to my posts, Thank you,,,,, open debate can lead to things getting done,,,

But,,,

your last line set the alarms off for me, " ,,,,,,,,But try to get that idea past the fiscal conservatives! " , you tipped your card in this debate, I believe,,, this is not conservative vs liberal at this point in time,,,, this government wastes more money a year , than it would take to build & maintain this facility,,,,,,,,, Who would fund it??? Who the &%LL funds everything else, good or bad in this country,,, WE DO .

I'm tired of people telling me what can't be don't done based on our past & current method of management.
JUST get it Done !!!

I've worked & lived in an enviorment where people who stand & proclaim, "It can't be done.",,, are pushed to the side by men & women more than willing to solve the problem,,,,,

There is no need to site other incidents related to this Ebola,,,,,, I won't turn this thread into a Right vs Left battle.

This post is not a personal one directed at you.

Part of the problem is that both left and right are unwilling to fund the building and maintenance of facilities that stand empty for years on end and resident staff until such times as they are needed.

Well,,,,, they're needed

Sarah Palin has expressed her sympathies and is praying for all the sick and suffering people living in Ebola.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Part of the problem is that both left and right are unwilling to fund the building and maintenance of facilities that stand empty for years on end and resident staff until such times as they are needed.

That happens a lot... people from a different industries will take decisions that make sense to them but make no sense to people in other industries. One that may sound familiar to you:

An ex-employer of mine, in the big iron market, got acquired by a large well known software company a few years ago. Said software company had bean-counters who decided that having a large inventory of spare parts was a waste of money and decided to sell the whole lot to generate some cash flow. They also thought it would make sense to close the localized logistics center and manage everything from a central location in America. They thought that the hardware company guys were idiots to have such large unused inventories and distributed logistics centers.

As spare parts suddenly had to be shipped from America, and were very often no longer on stock, it became impossible to fulfill the contractual obligations. Customers ordering new hardware also had to wait, because every single order now had to cross the Atlantic. The company lost a whole lot of customers and money in the process. In fact, I can't think of any company in my area that bought any of their equipment in the last 3 years.

For a software company, the decision of eliminating stock makes perfect sense... the fixed cost is in the initial production and the marginal cost of making extra copies is a drop in the ocean. For a hardware company, it was insanity as a lot of those parts were no longer manufactured and none of their suppliers were willing to retool whole production lines for small runs.

I can totally see the same error being made by a politician, in fact it has to happen all the time.