It has been
a real enlightening experience reading comments on the Ebola issue within US. You
give people a computer, a way to comment on an issue with an anonymity and you
will see the worst of the human behavior jump out. Take these simple examples
till date:
Thomas Duncan…the guy being portrayed
as epitome of selfishness. Does anyone in their right frame of mind think that he
will take a risk of pass the infection to his girlfriend and kids? If he was trying
to enter the country to get treatment, he would have forced himself upon the
hospital to admit him. As far as lying on the form goes, people tend not to answer
truthfully if the wrong answer is going to stop them from fleeing the danger. For
example, US immigration forms have a question “Are you a terrorist?”. Everyone
understandably answers the question “NO”. However, the only purpose of this
question is to put one more charge on the person for “lying on the federal form”
and then put him in jail for 5 years.
Second nurse who is taking a public
bashing about her choice to fly to make arrangements for her wedding. Some of
the common ones I am seeing are “How could she be that dumb or selfish?”, “ She
should know better”, “after all she has
selected nursing profession by choice”. Does anyone know if nurses can refuse
to take care of a patient if they are not comfortable with the training and personal
protective gear provided to them? Did the authorities asking her to risk her
life by taking care of Mr Duncan to explicitly stay home irrespective of symptoms…just
because she was in the team of nurse who treated Mr. Duncan.?
Everybody likes to jump on the government
entities for their response. I agree that there needs to be more accountability
on the part of agencies like CDC. I would be in favor of associating legal ramification
for gross negligence that would result in danger to public health. However,
there is a responsibility on the parts of the hospitals to actually practice “state
of the art” practices which they advertise in the commercials. No matter how
much you hate government regulations, the very fact the hospitals are doing minimum
required by CDC regulations, tells you what will happen if those regulations
are not there.
I
work in a field which requires Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response
(HAZWOPER) training and annual refreshers that includes medical exam. I have
gone through this for past 10 years and I can tell you that these trainings are
happening purely because government requires them. However the quality of those
training a below average to say the least. How exactly would you expect a
stellar response to HAZMAT situation if people are not trained enough. The
issue of the contractor not having permit to carry Mr. Duncan’s clothes on
Texas roads is a reflection of this broken system.
Stop blaming and accusing the people
who are either victims of this broken system or trying to do their part in the
fight against Ebola. It would be helpful
to support petitions that you think may control or solve this issue like
stopping the flights or either sending or not sending the troops to Ebola
infected areas.
Be constructive in your critic.
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