Above you see the USNS Mercy. Simple question. If Ebola is not the issue that I believe it to be then why aren't we seeing them activated for the mission in West Africa?
How could it help? You would get 1000 medical beds as soon as it arrived on scene. You would get almost a battalions worth of medical personnel when it pulled into dock.
Instead we have the 101st Airborne being tasked. Why? Simple. Because the real threat is that these countries are on the verge of falling apart. Ebola is a killer but the old ones are coming around the corner. Famine. Crops are failing and when you can't farm, people turn to bushmeat. That simply means they're going to go out hunting wildlife. That means Ebola is going to spread even more (bushmeat is suspected as the source of this disease). Mass migration. People are going to move when they sense that the danger is out of control. That means that people will cross borders which will further spread the contagion. Last is what we're seeing now but no one is talking about. The break down of social order.
What I would like to know is what the contingency plans are.
How is one Air Assault Division (even if we get the entire Division there...planning so far is to send a Brigade along with Division Headquarters) going to maintain order in 3 failed African states...while at the same time delivering medical support/aid...while at the same time protecting Air Assault Troopers against disease!
Mass contagion on a ship is also real bitch, and the prospect of dropping 50-90% of the patients over the side in shrouds daily isn't filling anyone with warm cheery thoughts either.
ReplyDeleteThe troops on the ground aren't there for any purpose except PR points.
They'll have zero effect on the outbreak, and their presence creates a massive liability due to both disease potential and safety concerns when, not if, the country(ies) involved there totally collapse.
The best thing they could be doing would be to GTFO, with all due haste.
There isn't a single military mission anywhere there within 500 miles for them to undertake, and that no one in authority in the military has had the balls to resign their command and go public tells me everything I need to know about what the military will do in any future contingencies.
Even in OIF/OEF, we had serving troops and officers telling The Boss "F*** NO, I ain't shipping out for that sh*t!"
But on this, everyone from top to bottom is perfectly willing to get on the boxcars and ride the train to Ebolaville, for no good reason.
We'll see how that works out when one of them gets sick, but at that point, they're all a write-off.
Unless and until they get pulled out, they're simply dead men walking.
ER Doctor: What Scares Me Even More Than Ebola
ReplyDelete"The battleground of this problem can’t be in the hospital. It is unwinnable in our emergency rooms."
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141025024804-325275276-er-doctor-what-scares-me-even-more-than-ebola
Key points:
- The cleaning function (housekeeping) is the weak point of the industrial hospital function and it is usually considered a low end low paying job. This where things fall apart, and quickly.
- All the equipment, process, procedures in the world, but will staff actually show up? That is THE QUESTION.
- Your typical hospital is not ready for a serious infectious disease that is highly transmissive.
- What can we learn from the Western Galilee (Israel) hospital about real emergency preparedness? Israelis are "invested". They will not run, because there is no where to. They know they have to stand their ground and fight.
- Have we learned? 100 years after the Spanish Flu. Our hospital functions and process centralized? In an epidemic we need distributed care, Mobile vehicles and systems. Bringing sick people to one location will only cause more transmission.
- Why not deploy hospital ships to West Africa? It's a disaster in the waiting. As AESOP says, they will quickly get overwhelmed and you will loose the whole ship (asset).
Here is the short answer. The T-AH19 class ships ONLY have a small isolation and ICU ward for contaminated patients, 40 or 50 I believe.
ReplyDeleteHere is the long answer. To send a T-AH anywhere even in its minimal manning of 250 beds, it takes MANY service members (and even NGOs) as well as the CVIMAR crew and airdet. And in addition it takes a CLF ship to support the T-AH at anchor offshore. AND if offshore it will be fairly far away for the "hot landing zones" OR even inport,, where does it get safe provisions from? . So no deploying a hospital ship is NOT such a good mission.
I have an old patch and old Army buddy gave me, it has a peace sign surrounded with this logo, "SOUTHEAST ASIA WAR GAMES.......SECOND PLACE" This is a war game, to practice a field operation in a hostile and contaminated civil breakdown arena.
ReplyDeleteThe troops are not there to fight Ebola or maintain order.
They are there to get live bio war exercise.
Plus Public relations from a POTUS who wants to look good working for Africa.