Free Republic

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) — Texas Health Resources CEO Barclay Berdan had a letter published in both The Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Sunday editions apologizing for some aspects of the response of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital to the first U.S. case of the Ebola virus. While expressing gratitude to the caregivers for their “dedication, compassion and tireless work” in caring for Ebola patients Thomas Eric Duncan, and Texas Health Presbyterian nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, who both contracted the virus at the hospital, Berdan acknowledges Texas Health Resources “made mistakes in handling this very difficult challenge.” Read...

As alternatives to the NHS are considered, which model of healthcare will Britain adopt? The French, the Swiss, the German or the American? Theodore Dalrymple thinks it might well be the Zairean - Theodore Dalrymple May 3, 2006 The Zairean model of healthcare as pioneered by Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko is gradually being adopted in Britain - or so argues Theodore Dalrymple. This model is a simple one - the rulers receive the best healthcare money can buy, the mass of the populace get an aspirin if they are lucky. In Britain, the mass of the populace will do rather...

President Barack Obama and members of his administration are holding a day-long mental health conference Monday at the White House--and they have asked Hollywood to help lend some star power. Actors Bradley Cooper and Glenn Close are among those invited to participate in the meeting, which features a panel on negative attitudes toward mental illness moderated by Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius, a panel on mental health outreach moderated by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and opening remarks from the president and closing remarks from Vice President Joe Biden, Cooper and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Close in 2009 co-founded...

Leadership: In a telephone press briefing, the CDC director repeated that you can't get Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus, but infected or exposed people should avoid public transit because they might transmit it. Huh? During the Wednesday conference call with reporters, Centers for Disease Control director Tom Frieden was asked if he or anyone else at the CDC had vetted a videotaped message posted on U.S. embassy websites that showed President Obama saying you couldn't get Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus, while the CDC's own guidelines advised those with symptoms or a...

Public Health: The man whose one job is to safeguard America's health has failed, saying that we must change our responses to Ebola after a Dallas health care worker becomes infected despite the rules he championed. After 26-year-old Dallas health care worker Nina Pham became the first person to contract Ebola on U.S. soil, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), said during a press conference that (we) "have to rethink the way we address Ebola control." Yes, we do. Pham's infection, just as Thomas E. Duncan's death in Dallas after a multistop trip from Liberia,...

The phrase “October Surprise” has a long history in American politics. It refers to that event, policy, or government statement that changes everything in advance of the famous “first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.” That was the Founders’ quaint way of describing Election Day. One famous example of an October Surprise was the announcement on October 26, 1972 by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger that “we believe that peace is at hand” in the long, drawn out negotiations to end American involvement in the Vietnam War. President Nixon was headed to a landslide victory that year against the...

Documents Show Congress Submitted False Information to Participate in Exchange. Though restricted by law to small businesses with 50 or fewer employees, D.C. Exchange allows Congress to provide health insurance to 12,359 members of Congress, staffers, spouses, and dependents. Judicial Watch today filed a taxpayer lawsuit against the District of Columbia Health Benefit Exchange Authority to stop Congress from participating in D.C.’s “Small Business Exchange.” At least 12,359 members of Congress, congressional staffers, and their spouses and dependents currently purchase health insurance in D.C.’s “Small Business Exchange” even though Congress far exceeds D.C. law’s 50-employee limit for participating in the...

As tensions grow between factions with different levels of concern over Ebola, a buzz-phrase has arisen: “Ebola has no political preferences.” The supposition is that the disease will gladly infect liberals as well as conservatives, which is certainly true. The differences that matter, however, are the political engines that drive attitudes and reactions, as a crisis that should be unaffected by politics is in fact exacerbated by it. It would be unfair to blame liberalism for the entirety of the arrogant displays we have been treated to since the late Thomas Eric Duncan lied to get into America. But there...

As a rule, one should not panic at whatever crisis has momentarily fixed the attention of cable news producers. But the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has migrated to both Europe and America, may be the exception that proves the rule. There are at least six reasons that a controlled, informed panic might be in order. (1) Start with what we know, and don’t know, about the virus. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other government agencies claim that contracting Ebola is relatively difficult because the virus is only transmittable by direct contact with bodily fluids...

During my years of medical training, back in the good old days, my professors hammered one very important aspect of medicine into our heads over and over: During a medical crisis, someone has to be in charge. There cannot be 20 voices in the room rendering opinions when somebody’s life is at stake. A prime example is when there is a code blue in a hospital setting where a patient is having a heart attack; there’s always somebody running the code, directing the staff with specific instructions on how to bring the patient back. You could take that same example...

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas lashed back Thursday at nurses' allegations that it had put workers at risk with shoddy protection policies and sloppy handling of waste while treating a Liberian man who died of the Ebola virus. [Snip] The hospital's response -- its second in two days -- in part shifted responsibility to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to the protocols the agency issued this summer to guide the handling of a patient infected by the virus, which is thought to have killed more than 4,400 people in West Africa. The hospital said the protocols...

Complete Headline:Ebola-stricken nurse Amber Vinson may have had symptoms almost a week ago - BEFORE she left Dallas for Ohio, went bridesmaid dress shopping, and flew BACK to Texas Ebola-stricken nurse Amber Vinson may have been showing symptoms of the deadly virus as early as last Friday - before she flew to Ohio for the weekend and then back to Texas. The CDC made the shocking announcement on Thursday, after Miss Vinson was revealed as the second medical worker in Dallas to contract Ebola from the U.S.'s 'patient zero' Thomas Duncan. On October 10, Miss Vinson, 29, may have had...

Day 1: How to draw blood from a suspected Ebola patient so you can test for the disease. Make sure you have all the materials you'll need before you put on your protective suit. Always work in pairs. Assess the patient's ability to sit still. Dispose of the syringe immediately. Wash your gloved hands under 0.5% chlorine solution. Label and spray. Drop the tube in a bag. Bag it again, spray it again. Spray the outside of the second bag. Walk to the laboratory area of the hospital. Just before you hand off the bag, spray it one more time....

The news that health workers fighting against the Ebola outbreak in Liberia are threatening to strike over long hours and unsanitary conditions should come as no surprise, given the high toll the healthcare community has had to pay for this virus.

The Giants are heading to Dallas this weekend and have taken steps to ensure their traveling party is briefed on the deadly Ebola virus that has been contracted by two female health care workers in the Dallas hospital where one man, Thomas Eric Duncan, died from the virus on Oct. 8. The Giants face the Cowboys on Sunday afternoon at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Complete Headline: Ebola air scare in the US: Infected nurse flew on Frontier Airlines HOURS she was hospitalized ...and now the CDC trying to track down all 132 passengers aboard her planeAmber Jay Vinson, the second nurse to be diagnosed with Ebola, was on a flight from Cleveland, Ohio, to Dallas just hours before she was hospitalized with the deadly disease. Now, the Centers for Disease Control are trying to track down all 132 passengers who were aboard Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 on Monday with Ms Vinson over fears they could all have been exposed to the virus. Everyone who...

Liberian health care workers largely ignored a call to strike Monday, despite claims that an estimated 80% of them are being forced to go without adequate supplies to fight the Ebola outbreak that has claimed more than 4,000 lives in west Africa. The government had asked health care workers to be reasonable, arguing a strike would have negative consequences on the containment of the outbreak, BBC reports. Liberia’s National Health Workers Association had called the strike demanding an increase in hazard pay Liberia is one of countries hit hardest by the Ebola outbreak, with 3,924 cases of the more than...

When I recently called for the resignation of CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, some of you may have thought I went too far. And yet here we are, facing startling claims that the Dallas medical staff who responded to the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States – including a nurse who is now hospitalized with the virus – had limited protocols in place. America, if you weren’t worried by Frieden’s inadequacy before, you should be now.

FULL TITLE: Giggling nurse with a throat infection who breathed on critically ill baby and said it was 'better off dead' faces being struck off A nurse who breathed on a critically ill baby while she was suffering from a throat infection and said the newborn was ‘better off dead’ faces being struck off. Claire Orton giggled after exhaling onto the 'extremely poorly' child while it was being treated at University Hospital in Coventry, Warwickshire, a tribunal heard. She had told colleagues she had been ill with a throat infection before she deliberately breathed on the infant’s face as if...

In the end, we are cutting our throats with government-run health care, as well as asking the federal government into our lives Covered California is the name for the Obamacare exchange in the Golden State. With the large State on the West Coast being dominated by hard left liberal progressive politics, most of the politicians tout the wondrous utopia our country is going to be once the few little bugs that seem to infest the Affordable Care Act are ironed out. We are told the problems with the healthcare law is not the fault of our historical president, mind you....