U.S. was ill-equipped to handle Ebola rescues, State Dept. contract reveals

yahoo ^ | Nov. 11, 2012 | Jason Sickles

[bgill]

The air ambulance operation tasked with rescuing U.S. Ebola victims from West Africa was initially slowed by bureaucratic bungling and is now at risk of being overburdened as thousands of American troops deploy to fight the deadly disease.

Yahoo News has learned the U.S. government spent millions last decade to develop and build two of the world’s only isolation chambers for flying contagious patients — but as the epidemic raged in West Africa this summer and American aid workers there needed evacuating, the medical inventions were packed away in a small-town Georgia warehouse.

The troubling lack of preparedness by federal agencies forced the State Department to put up $4.9 million as part of a rushed contract to employ a commercial aviator to safely evacuate Ebola-infected Americans from West Africa.

[bgill]

Lack of preparedness cost lives and tax dollars.

The military is now working on cargo planes to carry 15 patients. Would those be our troops who were not supposed to be around Ebola or used for foreigners?

Hope the holes they poked in the plastic for the ties have been properly sealed in those tents.

[DakotaGator]

Physical lack of preparedness is the least of it.

Neither the CDC nor the Public Health Service seems to have its act together about stopping the importation of the disease.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[ryan71]

I think of all the trillions and trillions of hard earned dollars we have spent with only our military to show for it. All other services are misguided, corrupt and incompetent.

[ansel12]

They are preparing to be able to carry patients and hopefully will now retain that capability for the future and not let it disappear after this situation, do you want them to not prepare?

[Morpheus2009]

And it is just right now after the fact, that this problem is being admitted. If I failed to admit a problem at my previous workplaces, and it was serious enough, I would lose my job. I don’t feel sorry for politicians or their appointees for this very fact. What’s worse is that our nation is open to other diseases besides Ebola from these same levels of incompetence.