CDC head Frieden regrets he didn't immediately send a larger team to Dallas

[pnwmom]

I'm glad the CDC is learning from its mistakes.

(He apparently would disagree with anyone who thinks this shouldn't be the CDC's job.)

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ebola-response-prevented-nurses-case-cdc-head/story?id=26195521

The nation's top health official said today he regrets not sending a larger team of experts to Texas when the first case of Ebola was diagnosed, a move he said may have prevented a Dallas nurse from getting infected.

President Obama said today that his administration is “surging resources into Dallas” to examine how nurse Nina Pham contracted Ebola while helping to care for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, and ensure “all lessons learned” will be applied across the country.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that from now on a "CDC Ebola response team" will be ready to reach a hospital "within hours" of a reported case of Ebola.

"I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed. That might have prevented infection," Frieden said at a news conference today. "We will do that from today onward with any case in the U.S."

SNIP

[TwilightGardener]

1. Wait--they didn't send an ebola team to Dallas? I thought they did?

They couldn't possibly have expected local hospitals to know what the fuck they are doing--along with sheriffs, EMT's, cleaning crews...

[pnwmom]

2. They sent somebody, but not enough.

"The CDC could have sent a "more robust management team and been more hands on from day one," Frieden said. "Looking back, we say we should have put an even larger team on the ground immediately."

[KittyWampus]

15. Yes, in HINDSIGHT because the state of TX ended up being incompetent.

[pnwmom]

17. I think it should have been predictable that any hospital not set up like Emory,

or Nebraska, etc., would not handle it very well.

Even Emory doctors have talked about how many unexpected problems they faced when dealing with their first patients.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. "They couldn't possibly have expected..." gee, they've been telling us for months that ebola won't

be a problem here, that it will wither in the face of our fearsome 1st world health care system.

As such additional importations of cases are nothin' to worry about, you know, piece of cake, "we're ready for ebola" etc. etc.

Except we're not ready. So maybe we shouldn't be so fucking blase about the allegedly "inevitable" additional importations of the virus.

[KittyWampus]

16. And it isn't the CDC's fault that TEXAS dropped the ball. Republicans want to blame the CDC

they NEED to shift blame away from Republican politicians and their austerity budgets, cuts and dismissal of public health concerns.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. I'm not interested in blame, but I dont appreciate obviously phony happy-talk.

Fine, someone was and probably is too incompetent to deal with a whole messload of importations of ebola cases. Let's acknowledge that, and then do the one sensible thing they should have done in August, namely stop letting visa-holders in from those 3 countries until this is under control.

[pnwmom]

18. That's the part that bothered me all along. The over-confidence going into this.

In fact, when the first case happened in Liberia in April -- our CDC said the same thing they said when it happened here. "No problem, the medical system there will quickly stamp it out."

Except they didn't.

[morningfog]

3. Yes. Glad they are learning that the need to ensure

protocols are followed.

He also said it is unlikely the 48 who had contact with Duncan prior to isolation were infected. That is good news and is consistent with what is known-- that it is not very infectious in the early stages.

[kestrel91316]

4. Translation: Hospitals clearly aren't being run very well when it comes to

handling unexpected infectious diseases, so Mom and Dad have to show up to supervise things.

Reminds me of when I show an employee exactly how to perform a task several times, explain repeatedly why we do it exactly that way, then watch over them several times to make sure they get it right, then tell them to let me know if they need help. And then find out down the road that they proceeded to do it the opposite of how I taught them the minute my back was turned.

"If you want it done right in medicine, you gotta do it yourself." says a very disillusioned CDC.

[pnwmom]

6. Why are you on this "Mom and Dad" kick? The CDC has well-earned expertise

that most community hospitals don't have. Of course they should be sharing it, and offering training when necessary.

Even Emory, a top hospital, had to learn a lot of this on the fly. Better for the CDC to step in with local hospitals to shorten the learning curve. Lives are at stake.

[kestrel91316]

7. Wait, I thought you considered CDC to be incompetent boobs for writing horrible, useless guidelines.

Now you like them??

Hospitals are not small children. I used Mom and Dad as mockery, since the hospital seems to be acting like an irresponsible child in shirking its duty to train its own freaking staff and train them right and not rely on big gubmint aka mom and dad to do it for them.

I respect CDC. I think they are doing a great job with Ebola. They are the true experts AND they are rolling with the punches this disease is throwing at the medical system.

I also expect hospitals to be run competently and not have to be shown how to tie their own shoes years after they should have learned how. The hospital in Dallas has failed on so many levels it's shocking.

[pnwmom]

19. You keep putting words in my mouth. And I keep telling you I never said that.

I said that there was no proof that the nurse breached the protocol, and that the other possibility was that the protocol itself wasn't adequate. And even now, more and more, the CDC is admitting that -- which is why they're thinking about changing the protocol.

For one thing, their hospital protocol didn't call for the buddy system that is used at Emory and other centers. Probably it should. The CDC is now considering that. That doesn't mean that their original protocol was "horrible" or "useless" -- but it could be possible to improve it.

[HereSince1628]

5. Isn't the US public health service part of the NAVY?

Couldn't we get some marine or navy medical staff flown to settings where hospitals don't have personnel to deal with the problems they face?

[kestrel91316]

8. USPHS is part of Dept of Health and Human Services and is overseen by

the Surgeon General. You will recall that we don't have one, thanks to the Republicants.

http://www.usphs.gov/

So I wouldn't expect them to show up for Ebola duty.

ETA: I spoke too soon. USPHS officers are assigned to work at CDC, along with many other agencies and entities. So they are probably already part of the CDC response.

[HereSince1628]

9. guess this is what I was thinking about...

The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC),[6] also referred to as the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service, is the federal uniformed service of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) and is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States.

Along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps, the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is one of two uniformed services that only consist of commissioned officers and has no enlisted or warrant officer ranks, although warrant officers have been authorized for use within the service.[7] Officers of the PHS are classified as noncombatants, unless directed to serve as part of the armed forces by the President or detailed to a service branch of the armed forces.[8] Members of the PHSCC wear the same uniforms as the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard (when assigned to the Coast Guard) with special corps insignia, and hold ranks equivalent to those of naval officers. Officers of the PHSCC receive their commissions through the PHSCC's direct commissioning program.

As with its parent division, the PHS, the PHSCC is under the direction of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The PHSCC is led by the Surgeon General who holds grade of vice admiral.[9] The Surgeon General reports directly to the Assistant Secretary for Health who may hold the rank of admiral if he or she is a serving member of the PHSCC.[9]

[kestrel91316]

10. See my ETA in the post you replied to. They work at CDC among other places.

[HereSince1628]

11. Wilco Thanks.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. "we are ready" "we will stop this in its tracks" ... nothing to worry about!!!

Funny, imagine if they'd spent some of that time over the past 3 months blandly assuring us how "ready" they are, actually getting, you know, ready.

"I wish we had...." WTF, dude. To borrow a meme, "you had ONE JOB". Every time this guy opens his mouth, he's either offering some feel-good calm the masses pablum, or he's apologizing for being wrong.


Really makes you confident when they assure us there is absolutely no need to consider crazy talk like restricting entry of visa holders from the 3 main affected countries, right?

[laundry_queen]

21. +1 nt

[KittyWampus]

14. The CDC (like FEMA) doesn't exist to do everything. Many DU'ers don't know how govt works

After Superstorm Sandy a lot of people up island were whinging because FEMA didn't do this, that and every other freaking thing.

FEMA and CDC are Federal level agencies who help with logistics, information, organization.

They can't automatically fix a mess made on the state level.

[pnwmom]

20. Actually, they COULD have sent a larger team to help. That's why Frieden is feeling regretful.

They made that choice, and he wishes they made a different choice.

[kestrel91316]

22. Exactly. Hospitals need to grow up and stop expecting a crippled federal agency that they HATE

to come save their asses from their bad decisions and failure to train staff.

Accepting responsibility is all RWers talk about, and yet they don't want to be held responsible for their own failures. And yeah, I suspect this and many other red state hospitals are run by RW nutjobs.