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

[Little Star]

Source: Yahoo News

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.

The Aeromedical Biological Containment System (ABCS), a tent-like structure that allows caregivers to treat a single patient in flight without infectious germs escaping, was engineered by the Centers for Disease Control, Department of Defense and a private flight company, Phoenix Air Group, between 2007 and 2010 after the scare over SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/us-ill-equipped-to-handle-ebola-evacuations--state-dept-contract-shows-191223341.html

[magical thyme]

1. ...and the rest of the world has no equipment to air evac Ebola patients

it turns out that the rest of the world has been "piggybacking" onto our 2 airplanes equipped to transport Ebola patients. That's why some countries (Canada is mentioned in the article) have decided not to send health care workers into the Ebola countries -- they have no way to bring sick healthcare workers back other than via our already overtaxed setup.

[cosmicone]

2. Sigh ... another example of

Obama being lofty on speeches and short on actual administration and execution.

The ACA website rollout, the VA appointment rigging, the Syria fiasco, the Ukraine fiasco and now this.

I like the guy and he is extremely bright and qualified. He is just not a good manager and he got weak managers in many cabinet departments.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

3. Yes, blame Obama for last decade's failures...

Did you even read the article?

[valerief]

4. Sigh...another one of those people here. You do know Congress slashed funding

for ebola, funding that Obama wanted. Of course, you do, but it's easier to ignore that fact.

[lamp_shade]

5. Ofercripesake... another "I like the guy but..." jeeziz

[JoePhilly]

6. Thus the 1000s of dead Americans stacked like cord wood outside American hospitals.

Its Obama's Katrina ... just without any dead bodies.

[JoePhilly]

7. Obama's time machine must not have been working.

[karynnj]

8. Reading the article, it is clear that we DID develop the ability once it was needed

and other countries are using OUR solution. What I do NOT see in the story is even one account of a US national left without support and returned to the US. The CLOSEST example is that the charity used the STATE DEPARTMENT "s recommended airline. That the complicated government contract was still being worked on - so they had to pay directly - seems the LEAST of possible problems.

As to the equipment not being on standby -- budgets were cut. This had to be a huge expense that MIGHT never be needed. It seems that at least the government knew where it was and the airline still had the modified planes.