RE: Not all hospitals have an infusion center. It seems that they can be independent operations where local hospitals send their patients for treatment.
Which means it is not widely available to everyone.... YET.
So, if I were to be diagnosed positive with early symptoms, I can’t simply go to a hospital on an outpatient basis to receive the treatment.
I’d have to wait till my situation gets worse ( or hope that I recover naturally and don’t have to need it ) before I can receive the treatment.
“...Ican’t simply go to a hospital on an outpatient basis to receive the treatment. I’d have to wait till my situation gets worse ( or hope that I recover naturally and don’t have to need it ) before I can receive the treatment.”
Hence my efforts to find a doctor who would quickly diagnose and would have MABs in his or her treatment arsenal. I couldn’t even get my doc or immunologist to say what treatment protocols they would consider. I wanted to find a doc who would say “yes, we use MABs and send patients to Infusion Center X early in the course of the disease.” So far, no luck. Very frustrating!
The distribution of the infusion centers is strange. My brother (who lives in a different state than i do) was infused in a town with a population of about 2,500. There are also infusion centers in bigger towns about 15-20 miles to the north and south of that town. On the other hand, the small city near me which is the medical hub for a fairly large area and 25 times larger than the town where my brother was infused doesn’t have an infusion center. The nearest one to me is about 50 miles away in a town about 7 times smaller than the city that is the medical hub for my area. Seems there are lots of infusion centers in the eastern half of the U.S. and on the west coast, but in certain areas of the country they aren’t so common.
FWIW, my brother’s doctor was going to send him home untreated but realized he qualified for infusion due to his age and comorbidity. The qualifications have been expanded since then according to a post in this thread. Good to see that.