Posted on 11/15/2014 12:27:30 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
(CNSNews.com) – Speaking at a White House event on Thursday to discuss the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola virus epidemic, Vice President Joe Biden said the United States should have a hospital that is capable of treating the disease in “every state of the Union.”
A reporter from the Wall Street Journal quoted Biden in the pool press report, which is e-mailed to other reporters, after the vice president met with “leaders of faith, humanitarian, and non-governmental organizations that are responding to the Ebola crisis in West Africa and educating their communities about Ebola-related issues here at home,” according to the White House statement on the event.
“Biden said that the United States needs a hospital that's able to respond to Ebola in ‘every state of the Union,’” the pool report stated. “Why take the chance, he asked, noting that the administration was not expecting Ebola cases in every single state in the union.”
On Sept. 16, President Barack Obama spoke at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about how the country’s medical experts and hospital were “prepared” to deal with the virus.
“In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home,” Obama said. “We’re working to help flight crews identify people who are sick, and more labs across our country now have the capacity to quickly test for the virus.”
“We’re working with hospitals to make sure that they are prepared, and to ensure that our doctors, our nurses and our medical staff are trained, are ready, and are able to deal with a possible case safely,” Obama said.
On Oct. 7, Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expressed confidence in the U.S. health care system in a blog on the CDC website.
“We have learned immensely from this first U.S.-diagnosed case and we are implementing additional actions to make sure health care workers and hospitals around the nation are as prepared and informed as possible,” Frieden said. “CDC is committed to making sure every U.S. health care system and health care worker is prepared for Ebola.”
But after the death of Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan from Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas on Oct. 8 and two nurses who treated him being diagnosed with the disease, the government assigned the women to two of the few U.S. hospitals deemed capable of caring for the women – the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland and Emory Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. (Both nurses are now free of Ebola.)
The pool reporter stated in his email that the event was meant to send a signal to Congress to approve the $6.18 billion the Obama administration has asked for in emergency funding “to continue to prevent, detect and respond to the Ebola epidemic.”
The pool reporter noted that Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain spoke for two minutes and Senior Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett spoke even less, citing laryngitis.
Biden, however, spoke for 25 minutes to those on hand, which included World of Hope, ONE, Bread for the World, the International Medical Corps, World Vision, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Save the Children and the law firm Latham & Watkins, according to the pool report.
"I'll be very blunt,” Biden said. “The emergency funding request that we have on the Hill now; I'm going to be completely honest.”
“We need you and your constituents to help carry the word because, your views -- each individual organization that's represented here -- carries a lot more weight in this environment, this political environment we find ourselves in, than anything I can say, the president can say, Speaker Boehner can say,” Biden said. “It is the currency that is most negotiable.”
“I'm being very blunt with you in addition to thanking you,” Biden said. “The more you continue your advocacy for the need for this emergency funding, the better we all will be."
According to the CDC, as of Nov. 12, 5,147 people have died from Ebola in three West Africa nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, with a handful of cases and deaths in other countries in the region.
Can’t believe I’m agreeing with Clown Car Joe on this one.
PING!
The US needs an administration and responsible agencies that won’t BS us and fear doing anything substantive that will make the “One” look bad. That’s what we need.
Why? Is there something our government hasn’t told us?
So you want to impeach obama
The very antithesis of epidemiological containment.
Once these facilities are established, they’ll stock them with frehsly flown in new patients from west Africa
How bout we make Liberia the 51st state, build a few hospitals over there, and then keep the patients OVER THERE.
Nah...just buy a shotgun.
What a dolt. If Ebola ever took hold you’d need a lot more than one hospital in every State that could handle it.
Of course one in each State would be a good start, but he seems clueless about how quickly that one hospital could get overrun in a real crisis (not to mention all the equipment and personnel).
I disagree. When small states, such as Rhode Island and New Hampshire, are just an hours drive to Boston there is no need to have all 3 states with fully equipped and staffed Ebola Centers.
NO! We need a policy to quarantine every visitor from 3 countries in W Africa for 21 days. No need to spend tax payer dollars building elaborate Ebola treatment outfits. Those are expensive because of the inordinate amount of precautions needed.
Yes, we’ll need these facilities because the assclown in the white hut brought the disease here.
Like other Dem talking points, it sounds good until you get the bill. If government wants to run healthcare, imagine all of those healthcare employees voting like public school teachers, and sending their political donations to the same party...
Stupidest Vice-President ever. And that includes some real doozies.
Nothing new here. ALL democrats are generous in spending tax payer’s money. Yet they are very stingy with their own money. Biden is one of he stingiest in giving charitable donations.
This needs to go way beyond just Ebola.
We have learned that after decades of exercises and billions of dollars and countless positive articles, that we weren’t ready for a bio attack at all, or even a pandemic resulting from a national catastrophe like disease waves resulting from an EMP or nuclear attack, or nature.
America needs a reawakening of our civil defense readiness and this is just one step in that direction, we need this and an emergency plan where we can expand quickly if needed, first the instant ability to treat dozens of victims of a national multiple point bioterrorist attack, and then a concrete plan and permanent preparations to expand to 100s or 1000s of beds fairly rapidly as is practical within reasonable budget concerns.
The Guard and the Reserves could be better prepared, and civilian hospitals could maintain a portion of staff that receives annual or biannual training, but all this needs to be maintained long after this story disappears, it needs to become institutionalized, just as most of us already thought it was.
Most of us thought we were prepared for this stuff and could quickly react and contain it, but now we cringe at the thought of the chaos that just a dozen infected terrorists could have caused if they had arrived in a dozen cities just like that one Liberian did, that single patient became a threat way out of proportion of what should have been.
"Virtually any hospital in the country that can do isolation can do isolation for Ebola."
-- Thomas Friedan, CDC director in sworn testimony before Congress, early October 2014.
Even worse, it is growing the “government-employment sector” - another built-in automatic Dem constituency, funded by taxpayers to funnel private-sector income to the Democrats.
Actually, no we don’t. We need pre-positioned pre-fab DISPOSABLE treatment units. I’d build them out of CONEX containers. Sealable, durable, and when you’re done with a patient, pull out the inside equipment and just burn it. Medical equipment and supplies on the outside, a plastic liner and bed on the inside. Sensors, IV lines, etc, run through connections on the wall.
Crank ‘em out and stockpile them.
Because AFTER you use a facility for an Ebola Patient, you’re talking about nearly doubling the treatment cost in re-habbing and re-sterilizing the ward to meet CDC standards and protocols. Use American Manufacturing instead. . .
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