Florida closes only tuberculosis hospital amid worst US outbreak in 20 years

[redqueen]

Source: The Guardian

Health officials in Florida hastened their closure of the nation's only dedicated tuberculosis hospital on cost-cutting grounds as one of the worst outbreaks of the deadly disease in 20 years was taking a grip on the state, it has been revealed.

At least 3,000 people in Jacksonville may have been exposed to the highly contagious respiratory illness that claimed 13 lives in the city and left another 100 sick in the last two years, a report from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded.

But news of the severity of the outbreak never reached Florida's politicians, who voted in March to bring forward the closure of the 100-bed AG Holley state hospital in Lantana by six months to July 2.

As a result, patients once deemed too sick for contact with the public were released into the community and others newly diagnosed with the disease, mostly from the homeless population, are being put up in local motels in an effort to keep them on their medications.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/09/florida-closes-tuberculosis-hospital-outbreak?newsfeed=true

---

Unbelievable.

More stories about this situation on Raw Story.

[Ken Burch]

1. More evidence that Republicans want as many of us as possible to die.

Alan Grayson is proven right, yet again.

[wordpix]

13. unfortunately, they're too stupid to realize they, too, can be stricken now that

the TB patients are released.

[Ken Burch]

17. I think they figured that's where Newt's "Moon colonies" would come in.

n/t.

[toddwv]

2. 3rd world country.

That's what they are aiming for.

[bluedigger]

3. Why don't they just hurry up and die?

Grayson 2016!

[Iliyah]

4. Gov Scott and the rest of the goppers will

blame Pres O and the Dems for allowing this outbreak to happen just because. We all know that gopers are always the victims unless they can take credit for someone elses good deeds.

Yes, Grayson was 100% right and this week the house goppers will vote to repeal ACA instead of focusing on jobs.

[yardwork]

14. You're right. I'm sure that they're telling everybody that Obamacare did this.

[sakabatou]

5. They want people to die

They don't give a shit but their own hides.

[limpyhobbler]

6. People in the UK must think we are really dumb when the see this in their newspaper.

[dipsydoodle]

9. Not just on this

More the fact you've not got socialised healthcare.

On the subject of TB - in London :

London is “the TB capital of Europe”, The Daily Telegraph has reported. The newspaper says that Britain is now the only nation in Western Europe with rising levels of tuberculosis, with more than 9,000 cases diagnosed annually. In London, where 40% of UK cases are reportedly diagnosed, the number of cases has risen by almost 50% since 1999, up from 2,309 in 1999 to 3,450 in 2009.

The Guardian has also discussed the rising prevalence of the disease, which was detailed in a report on the modern TB situation in London, as well as the UK as a whole. The report’s author, Professor Alimuddin Zumla of University College London, attributes the rise to people living under “Victorian” conditions, with poor housing, inadequate ventilation and overcrowding in certain deprived areas of London.

Professor Zumla has also observed that the increase in TB cases has been predominantly among people born outside the UK, but who appear to have been infected here, rather than in their country of origin. He has called for the implementation of a London-wide strategy to help control the disease.

http://www.hawick-news.co.uk/news/health/behind-the-headlines/tb-rises-in-uk-and-london-1-425329

The fact that cases are predominantly among people born outside the UK, but who do not appear to have been infected here, rather than in their country of origin is incidental. Much of our TB was imported years ago mainly from the Indian sub continent - their habit of chewing and then spitting out beetle nuts in the street probably didn't help. There was a time when Indians paid Doctors NOT to innoculate them - they thought they'd otherwise lose their soul.

Some history of TB here : http://www.tbalert.org/news_press/TBHistoricalTimeline.htm

[Diclotican]

15. limpyhobbler

limpyhobbler

Not just UK... Tb is one of the worst illnesses to get, and is hard to get well from.... To close the only TB hospital right in the middle of a outbreak of the stuff - is just plain stupidity... But then again, it is the republicans we is talking about...

I had a uncle who had TB in his young years - and he told me some stories about it was.... Even though in Norway, even then they had a decent public founded healt care, it was not that funny to be more or less closed up in a hospital for years at a time - (sanitorium) But at least, with the new medicines aviable after WW2 he got well (even though the medisines was expensive at the time) he never forgot how it was to be one of "them" who had TB...

Diclotican

[limpyhobbler]

19. Diclotican

Thank you for understanding that the idiots who would close a TB hospital right in the middle of a TB outbreak do not represent all Americans.

Unfortunately for some reason our nation does seem to have been cursed with quite a few of these mentally deficient clowns.

[Diclotican]

20. limpyhobbler

limpyhobbler

At the start of my "education" of USA, I might have believed it to be the case for every americans - but as my "education" have progressed down the like I have understood, that even though it exist enough stupidity to go around for every one - the Republicans seen to be "blessed" with at lof of it - and is more or less proud to express it too..

It doesn't need to be to many, to be able to ruin a country, or at least one, and one State in the US.. If you also have the power of the media to back you up, then you are set, to be able to do whatever you want to do - with the ability to never be punished for it..
Or at least as long as you do not go to far in your extremism.. Even though I would say that the americans seen to be "accepting" a lot from the Republicans this day... If the Democrats have had this disdain for the "common" man, I fear it would have ended in a bloody civil war again... It could yet end in a civil war of sorts - if americans was not able to turn the tide by peacefully means.. It have happened in more stable country's over the last 40 years or so.. I guess the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was rather secure about his place in the country - to the fatefully day in November 1989, where he lost the grip - and his life in a single week... Even though USA still is a democracy (of sorts) it was near dictatorship under GWB. He even played publicy with the idea about making USA a dictatorship - with himself as dictator, becouse it would make USA so mutch easer to govern... A verry distasefull joke if you ask me.. Even though the right see to love it, as the marvelous joke it was...

To close a hospital, where they can treat TB with knowlegde - on the onstart of a TB outbreak - is just stupid.. I was wondering about having a holliday in the sunshine State of Florida next year - I think I wil pas it now.. I can use the money other places who is closer to home - and also less in a danger to get TB...

Diclotican

Diclotican

[Flagrante]

7. The free market is just begging to help these people, can't you hear it?

Who needs "big government" when the drive for profit will cure these people like Jesus himself, if only the government would get out of the way.

[DeSwiss]

8. Come to Florida for the Sun! Sand! Surf!

...Communicable Diseases! Hacking Coughs! Respiratory Infections & Pneumonia! Eventual Death!

- New tourism promotion from the Rick Scott's Office......

K&R

[kooljerk666]

11. I brought this up when calling..............

all Dem members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I told them i would be calling Disneyland & letting them know our church groups can not come to a plague state.

I actually really poured it on & had many staffers laffing out loud.

Digging into FL tourism by being a loudmouth is a great way to turn business interests against Guv. Skelator.

Health Committee contacts: http://congress.org/congressorg/directory/committees.tt?commid=slabo

Dragging Scott onto cspan3 to answer for encouraging disease & explaining himself ought to make real entertaining TV.

BTW the "guv skelator" comment brought loud chortles & snorts of lafter from everyone who heard it.

[redqueen]

12. Great toon. nt

[FlaGranny]

10. I live not too far from

AG Holly. When I worked in the medical field, the patients that were sent to AG Holly were the patients that could not or would not take their medications, patients that could not be trusted to follow up on treatment. They were homeless, addicted, or otherwise unable to comply. The hospital existed to keep the rest of the community safe from exposure. In fact, you might say they were "sentenced" to AG Holly, usually after numerous attempts to treat them in the general population. These people will quickly be lost to follow up. The area draws homeless from all over the east coast due to the weather. I can see tuberculosis becoming a real problem in the near future.

[Blue Owl]

16. All part of the great Rick Scott plan

n/t

[myrna minx]

18. Wow. I don't even know what to say. n/t