One of the largest health care providers in Texas can handle only about six Ebola cases at any given time using current medical protocols.
“What if, God forbid, we saw 8,000, as in West Africa? They had no answer,” says @SenTedCruz.
The startling figure was revealed by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in a Texas Tribune commentary criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the Ebola outbreak.
Cruz said he learned in a recent meeting with health care officials of the challenges that would face America’s medical system should an outbreak occur on U.S. soil. This week, two medical workers in Dallas were diagnosed with the disease after caring for a Liberian man who later died.
In the op-ed, Cruz wrote:
I recently visited with the leadership of one of Texas’s largest health care systems about their precautions to counter Ebola. I asked how many Ebola patients they could reasonably handle with these protocols. “Six or so,” they responded. What if, God forbid, we saw 8,000, as in West Africa? They had no answer.
Cruz didn’t name the health care system and his office declined to comment.
According to a story in the Killeen Daily Herald, last week Cruz visited Scott & White Healthcare, based in Temple, Texas, to discuss “steps being taken to deal with the possibility of an Ebola outbreak.” A spokesman for Scott & White, which claims to be “the largest not-for-profit healthcare system in Texas,” did not respond to multiple inquires from The Daily Signal.
An official at the Texas Hospital Association said a widespread Ebola outreach could pose challenges for hospitals given the protocols that must be followed for Ebola patients.
“It’s expensive to prepare for the isolation protocols that would be required for something at the level of Ebola,” said Lance Lunsford, a Texas Hospital Association vice president.
Lunsford cautioned that it’s not just physical space that’s needed. Special equipment and expensive Tyvek suits are also used when caring for Ebola patients.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)
Cruz’s revelation came as the two medical workers with Ebola left Dallas. Amber Vinson and Nina Pham were both in contact with Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Oct. 8, at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Vinson was transferred to Atlanta and Pham was relocated to the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.
In the nation’s capital, meanwhile, lawmakers called for the Obama administration to take additional measures to prevent the spread of Ebola. Cruz is among several high-profile Republican who want the administration to halt flights from West African countries where the disease has killed at least 4,500 people already and continues to multiply.
>>> Would a Travel Ban Stop the Spread of Ebola?
Obama, who canceled political fundraising appearances this week to focus on Ebola, already has ordered U.S. military personnel to provide assistance to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Yesterday, he gave the Pentagon approval to call up military reservists as well.
Cruz voiced skepticism about the use of the military after visiting troops at Fort Hood and Fort Bliss in Texas, where they are preparing to deploy.
“It’s troubling that we’re sending so many soldiers into harm’s way when it’s still not clear what military objective they’re expected to accomplish,” Cruz wrote in the op-ed. “We should all agree, however, that it’s absolutely critical we do everything possible to protect our servicemen and women and prevent them from potentially contracting this terrible virus.”