aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, February 26, 2007

Pandemic flu planning

I went to a session on pandemic flu preparedness tonight presented by our regional health district. The message is basically this: stock up and get prepared now because when it hits (not if it hits) all bets are off. You’re on your own.

This is from part three of NPR’s The Edge of Disaster series:

Stephen Flynn, former Coast Guard commander and author of The Edge of Disaster, says that the United States medical system is unprepared to handle a catastrophic emergency such as a flu pandemic or a major terrorist attack.

The problem, Flynn says, is that hospitals have been trying to cut costs.

“The medical community has been moving in the direction of much of our economy,” he says, “which is wringing out the extra capacity in order to essentially focus on the bottom line.”

Flynn says the United States lacks the federal leadership necessary to organize state and local efforts. Here in Georgia there are over 8 million people. We have 22,000 hospital beds. And only 16,800 nurses. There’s trouble ahead.

Flynn worries that a medical system that can barely meet day-to-day demands will be caught unprepared by an onslaught of emergency cases.

“We’re going to have incidents whether by acts of God or acts of man that are going to place a lot of people in desperate need for emergency care,” Flynn says. “And it will be life and death whether or not they receive it.”

He says that investing in a medical system that can handle a potential surge is “something that we can’t afford not to do.”

Flynn endorses alternative solutions that will enforce the medical system without tremendous expense. He says much more can be done to reach out to retired doctors and nurses who could serve as a rank of reserves for medical professionals.

There are also programs that give citizens basic training so that they can assist medical professionals in the event of an emergency.

To inspire such change, Flynn thinks the United States needs to realize that the medical system is moving in the wrong direction.

In the meantime, stock up. Visit pandemicflu.gov