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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]I am one of the posters who called a post hysterical (the one about our hospitals quickly becoming overwhelmed).  [/b]

It seems that others are using hysterical in the medical sense.  Hysteria (or female hysteria) hasn't been a medical diagnosis in 50 years.

I'm not accusing anyone of mental illness, I'm accusing some people of getting carried away and coming close to unreasonable panic.[/quote]

I wrote that and it's naive of you to not understand that hospitals could easily be over run. Not every hospital is as large or part of a system like the ones in DC.  You have to contend with the fact that training may be periodic or sporadic in smaller cities for rare infectious viruses as well as the fact that doctors may not consider testing for it, have the ability to test for it or have to arrange for specialized transport. This will be true in remote and rural areas, etc.  There is also staff fear - staff may not report to work because they are afraid or staff may panic after coming into contact with the illness and not reporting it hoping they will get better.  And you need a lot of staff - not just doctors and nurses but CNAs, janitorial, contractors who fix systems, etc. In smaller areas, there could be less community resources available to deal with communicating and dealing with panicked public, etc.  It seems that you don't quite grasp the concept that the US includes many areas that are not major cities with major large healthcare systems and networks. Places like DC, Dallas, Atlanta - should be able to cope fine but they are not the entire US.  [/quote]

My experience with rural hospitals is that they tend to service very large geographic areas, with lots of careflights, etc.  They tend to be reasonably large with well-trained doctors and staff, and are also usually the largest local employer.  It's true, I've also encountered a few smaller hospitals where protocols are non-existent and there's nobody home after 9pm.  In those instances, it might make sense to transfer any potential Ebola victim to a larger hospital, or it might not.[/quote]

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