U.S. officials trying to set up a network of hospitals in this country to care for Ebola patients are running into reluctance from facilities worried about steep costs, unwanted attention and the possibility of scaring away other patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re saying, \u2018Look, we might be willing to do this, but we don\u2019t want to be called an Ebola hospital. We don\u2019t want people to be cancelling appointments left and right,\u2019\u00a0\u201d said Michael Bell, director of laboratory safety at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n
The reticence, although perhaps not surprising, complicates government efforts to ensure that the country can effectively treat people with Ebola and contain possible outbreaks.<\/p>\n
Just a few facilities in the United States have special biocontainment units, which are ideal for treating Ebola, and they can handle only two or three patients at a time.<\/p>\n
And the case of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who was initially misdiagnosed at a Dallas hospital and died, shows how easily a community hospital can stumble.<\/p>\n
Of the 5,000 hospitals in the United States, dozens have volunteered to treat Ebola patients. As of mid-November, CDC infection-control experts had visited 41 facilities in 12 states and the District of Columbia, according to agency Director Thomas Frieden.<\/p>\n
But it is not clear how many medical centers will pass muster and whether the number will be enough for the administration to meet its goal of establishing an adequate network of Ebola-ready facilities.<\/p>\n
Bell said the government would initially like to have \u201ca couple dozen\u201d facilities in the network.<\/p>\n
The Obama administration\u2019s $6\u00a0billion emergency funding request for Ebola, which includes $154\u00a0million for hospital preparedness and support, envisions at least one designated facility in every state, and additional ones in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Los Angeles; and Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
The White House wants Congress to approve the request by Dec.\u00a011, when current government funding runs out.<\/p>\n
In trying to set up the network, federal officials, working with state health departments and local hospitals, are taking a three-step approach.<\/p>\n
The first priority is to find hospitals near five international airports \u2014 John F. Kennedy in New York; Newark Liberty; Washington Dulles; O\u2019Hare in Chicago and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta \u2014 that travelers from Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Mali are required to use when arriving in the United States.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0washingtonpost.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. officials trying to set up a network of hospitals in this country to care for Ebola patients are running into reluctance from facilities worried about steep costs, unwanted attention and the possibility of scaring away other patients. \u201cThey\u2019re saying, \u2018Look, we might be willing to do this, but we don\u2019t want to be called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":69902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[15,14],"yoast_head":"\n