UK NHS Ebola Catastrophe, Out of Control Outbreak Within Weeks
Politics / NHS Oct 08, 2014 - 01:27 AM GMTBy: N_Walayat
The case of the Spanish nurse contracting Ebola from a Spanish patient flown into Spain from West Africa and going onto infect others as patient zero for the outbreak with more than 50 being monitored, illustrates the myth of competency that surrounds the western public sector health services in that at least for 1/3rd of the time the public health services only tend to go through the motions of providing a health service which whilst most of the time the consequences for lack of consistency in competency is only to the detriment of the patient, however Ebola is completely unforgiving where any lack of competency can result in a disastrous outcome as Spain is realising today that there is a huge gap between what it's health service states it can do and what it actually delivers.
Whilst today's focus is how Spain's public health service have so spectacularly failed with just 1 Ebola patient for which the authorities had ample time to prepare for. Instead Britain’s NHS is arguable in far worse state of readiness for the public sector lack of competency disease is far more prevalent in the UK that manifests itself in DELAYS in diagnoses and treatment that can not just run in the days but months!
EBOLA IN the UK - How the Pandemic Will Happen
The UK is primed for an Ebola pandemic due to inherent culture of putting patients second, for which the likes of Ebola will be very unforgiving as where Ebola is concerned time is of the essence for this highly infectious virus due to the 12 days or so that the patient is infectious upto the point of death and remains infectious even after death.
A&E - Firstly it can take upto 6 hours to be seen in A&E and then there is a 50/50 risk that the symptoms would be dismissed and the patient sent home to further incubate the virus and spread the infection.
GPs - It can usually take upto 1 week to be seen by your GP for flu like symptoms that Ebola would tend to exhibit in the earlier stages of infection.
Hospital Referrals - It could take as long as 3 months to be referred to a specialist, many times the critical time period of 12 days that the virus can take to KILL the patient let alone infect many others. Especially as the NHS wants patients to first do the appointment dance i.e. GP refers, patient waits for a letter with password to log onto the NHS website to make an appointment, no appointments available so the patient has to go back to their GP, the result a month wasted.
Therefore don't believe state NHS propaganda of the UK being ready and able to cope with Ebola patients for the NHS culture of inconsistency ensures that the NHS WILL FAIL even more spectacularly than the Spanish health service has.
The government believing its own preparedness propaganda has compounded the potential for an UK Ebola crisis by instead of declaring it would stop all flights from affected countries during the current outbreak instead dicing with death complacently states that travellers from Sub-Saharan Africa will not even be checked for signs of infection which sows the seeds for a number of infected individuals to be allowed into the UK where only 1 would be necessary to mark Britain’s patient zero to start an outbreak, especially as free movement of people is enshrined in European union treaties no matter the risk they may pose in terms of spreading a virus.
Furthermore hundreds of UK NHS workers are being flown out to western Europe who given lack of competency will make matters worse ! And a undoubtedly a significant number of whom will become infected and then flown back into the UK who will go on to start their very own outbreaks. I can imagine the BBC 6 o'clock news naming the outbreaks, John, Julie, Simon, Mary and then giving the tallies of the number infected and deaths.
Therefore given that the number of infected people in the effected countries is doubling every 3 weeks then it is highly probable that the UK will have its own out of control Ebola outbreaks before the end of this month (October). This is INEVITABLE!
Consequences of a UK Outbreak
In zones of as much as 50 miles circumference schools will close, shops will be emptied and travel restrictions imposed as areas come under emergency quarantine controls which will impact on economic activity for quarantines will be the only real mechanisms for managing the outbreaks during the critical period of time for preventing new outbreaks from taking place nation wide.
Furthermore, for a time all hospitals near affected areas should be treated as no go areas for they will be the most likely place from where the virus will spread! As in walks an infected patient, sits in A&E for several hours infecting everyone and everything they touch then income the nurses and junior doctors, infected, who go on and infect other patients and family members and on it goes....
Stock Market Fall Out
Expect the travel, holiday and hotels sectors to be increasngly hit hard as the market will tend to discount the future.
Source and Comments: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article47650.html
By Nadeem Walayat
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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.
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