Sir, – The HSE has recently assured the Irish public that our nation is capable of dealing with any global outbreak of the Ebola virus. As a medical practitioner, I find it hard to accept this assurance.
The truth is that the HSE struggles to cope with such regular occurrences as cold weather, excess rainfall or seasonal influenza. Whenever these somewhat predictable events occur, our health service quickly degenerates into chaos, with hundreds of people on trolleys, cancelled operations and a frantic scramble to deposit elderly people into short-stay nursing homes.
Moreover, thanks to the ongoing HSE policy of protecting clipboard-wielding managers at the expense of sick patients, our nation continues to have a shortage of intensive care beds, which are somewhat important in dealing with severe illnesses.
In spite of all this, we are assured that in the event of an Ebola outbreak the HSE has everything “under control”. Indeed, it seems part of the current plan is to tell people suspected of being infected to attend their GP, or as the authorities like to put it, “to seek medical attention”.
Perhaps I am missing something here, but what exactly can any GP do to treat Ebola? Since when do small surgeries have the facilities necessary to deal with contagious viral haemorrhagic fevers? Does such an approach not run the risk of primary care staff and other patients also contracting infection, and the disease spreading more rapidly?
Perhaps a better strategy might be for any suspected case of ebola to be dealt with by a mobile specialist team, equipped with the necessary protective clothing and equipment to deal with this lethal illness. Patients at risk of being infected could be thus be assessed and treated in their own homes, before being transferred securely to an isolation unit in a hospital. Or is this too sensible for the HSE? – Yours, etc,
DR RUAIRI HANLEY,
Gibbstown,
Co Meath