Posted on 10/15/2014 10:26:38 AM PDT by jazusamo
Three House Democrats are calling on President Obama to allow U.S. troops in West Africa to provide direct care to Ebola patients.
The Obama administration has already committed around 4,000 U.S. troops to help fight Ebola in the affected West African countries, but they are performing tasks such as building treatment centers and training local providers, not directly providing care.
Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Karen Bass (Calif.), and Barbara Lee (Calif.) want to change that.
"We write to urge you to consider building on the current response to the Ebola epidemic by allowing military medical and technical personnel to provide direct care to and to come into contact with patients in West Africa," the representatives wrote in a letter to Obama. "We further urge that Americans assisting in the effort be provided with the best protective equipment, training, and processes in the world at their disposal to ensure their safety."
The call comes as the World Health Organization says that there could be as many as 10,000 new Ebola cases every week within two months.
The lawmakers raised concerns that there would not be enough trained staff to care for Ebola patients if the U.S. did not directly step in.
"The commitment of 4,000 military personnel, to assist with standing up Ebola Treatment Units (ETU) and logistical response are essential contributions," they wrote. "However, we have heard from those working in West Africa that there is uncertainty about who will staff the ETUs, who will manage them, and whether their level of experience under these conditions is commensurate with the task."
President Obama canceled campaign trips to New Jersey and Connecticut on Wednesday to meet with cabinet agencies involved in the Ebola response. The step comes as the second healthcare worker in the United States was announced to have Ebola on Wednesday.
Many Republican lawmakers have called for a ban on travel to the U.S. from the affected countries, but the Democrats rejected that option in the letter.
"If the U.S. enacts policies like travel bans, which are not effective and discourage volunteer participation, we increase the chance of worsening the epidemic and the chance that new cases arrive in the U.S," they wrote. "Instead, we should be offering incentives for volunteers and assurances that they will have access to everything they need to be as safe as possible at all times."
Thats right. They are there to hold an umbrella while that POS regurgitates his babble.
Why don’t the house dems go over and do it themselves.
“Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Karen Bass (Calif.), and Barbara Lee (Calif.)?
All from the Amish Caucus, one acknowledged Muzzie and two probably in the closet.
Keith X should send Major Hassan.
Talk about “mission creep”!!
“provide direct care to Ebola patients”. Let me change that to run the risk of contracting Ebola and brining it home.
I have no idea how many nurses and doctors were involved at the Texas hospital treating Mr. Duncan for the two weeks he was there. having said that a CDC based article says it takes 20 people to treat an Ebola patient in a level 4 hospital. If so that means you have a 10% chance of contracting Ebola while “provide direct care to Ebola patients”.
10% of 3,000 American military personal - that means we are looking at 300 potential infected personal. Personally, I would expect the number to be higher because of the more primitive hospital facilities.
I agree with your position - it is long past time for our leaders from Obama down to the local dog catcher to lead from the front and go out and do the job that they are ordering others to do.
Well see a 12-15% fatality rate out of this. This is agonizing.
It goes far beyond that, in my opinion, it’s aiding and abetting the murder of our military and you can bet when they start dying we will be asked to believe that they didn’t follow proper protocol.
the dims
“We are sending you on a suicide mission....any volunteers? A show of hands?”
Ellison (not his real name prior to filing for election to the office) is a muzzie. Go figure.
What time frame do you see for that?
because the 101st Airborne are all medics??? How about we send them all of the CDC instead?
I’ll second that and Frieden can set up his command tent next to the Ebola ward tents.
We all knew that was coming. Sure, as if they have those skills. When a major hospital following CDC protocol (snort) has failures, imagine how quickly it’ll spread throughout our troops. Of course, that was the point all along.
Can we just send Obama and Congressional Democrats instead?
say, 180 days (being generous)
Do you find that estimate...odd...high/low? (honest question)
That’s not entirely from the disease. That’s including logistics accidents and villagers killing a few Marines with machetes because they think the Marines are actually infecting them.
Ain’t gonna be zero. I recall living in LA and hearing about fatalities at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego. Weekend exercise with 4500 Marines on the beach, doing exercises, war games, whatever. No weekend *ever* went by when 2-4 were not killed in Jeep rollover accidents. That’s from screwing around on the beach.
We have about the same number of personnel, in 6 months you have 25 weekends, helicopter flights, that’s say 80-100 men/women, from the disease I would estimate that 5-7% is inevitable.
I absolutely do not mean to be ghoulish and certainly not insulting to our troops in any respect, I’ll revise my number down to 10%.
If health care workers in a US hospital fell victim to Ebola how much more at risk will US service personnel be treating Ebola is the wilds of Africa especially since they likely do not have the protective gear or training to handle an infectious disease like Ebola. Obama just sent these brave warriors on a suicide mission.
Agreed !
Due to the adminstrations history of "MISSION CREAP", I expect that some will be ordered to have direct contact with the infected.
They are doomed if they follow the CDC proocals, better to follow equipment and procedures of MSF(Medicines Sans Frontiers) who are already expierienced with Ebola.
If they are to build structures, send in the Sea Bees, or Army Engineers
If they are to have direct contact , send them in with the House DemoRATS !
Maybe the soldiers could have a meet and greet photo-op with these very patriotic congresshumans upon their return. Like to see them weasel out of that.
So, three radicals who hate America want our boys and girls to die? Figures.
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