Michigan Develops Plans for Ebola Patients - If They Come

Michigan is ready if called upon to provide medical care to an Ebola patient, Gov. Rick Snyder told The Detroit News editorial board.

The governor said his administration is in almost daily contact with state health and emergency management officials to make sure plans are in place now that two patients are receiving care in U.S. hospitals.

“People are all working together to ensure that we have our contingency plans in place,” Snyder said in an interview with The Detroit News editorial board. “We’re learning based on what we’re seeing down in Texas. ... We’re also making sure people aren’t just sitting back on this, that they’re going to be prepared to move quickly.”

The first of two patients receiving treatment in the U.S., Liberian Thomas E. Duncan traveled to Texas while contagious and is being treated there, where he is in critical condition. On Monday, U.S. journalist Ashoka Mukpo arrived at Nebraska Medical Center after contracting the disease while spray-washing a vehicle where an Ebola patient had died, ABC News reports.

Related:

• Liberians Urge Americans to Shed Complacency About Ebola

The Michigan Department of Community Health is also working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and area hospitals to solidify plans, should the state be called upon to care for an Ebola patient.

“I may be overstating this, but I think almost every hospital in Michigan is equipped to do the isolation work that we need to do,” Snyder said.

There are no known active Ebola cases in Michigan, but employees of Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital were tested last week after treating a patient who had a high fever and had been in West Africa, where Ebola has claimed at least 3,430 lives, according to the CDC. The patient wasn’t treated for the disease because he didn’t meet the criteria, but was placed in isolation. He was diagnosed with a disease other than Ebola, a hospital spokesperson told the newspaper.

» Read the full story on The Detroit News.

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