Forgive the cross-posting of the message. This occurred to
me as a good idea and I wanted to send it to both Lists to
get feedback on it.
How to create the medical infrastructure to respond to
terrorism and also improve the US image abroad?
The US could establish a large fleet of hospital ships. (I
think we have one at the moment.) Doctors and nurses would
receive significant tuition reimbursement in exchange for
service on these ships.
These ships would be sent all over the world to treat
diseases in less developed nations. The benefits would be:
(1) good PR for the US,
(2) increased knowledge of tropical diseases that our
immigration policies will eventually bring to the US,
(3) economies of scale in drug research for those diseases,
and importantly,
(4) the ability to respond to a bioterror attack in the
United States.
At present, the CDC has admitted that it has no
infrastructure to deal with bio- or radiological terrorism.
Having a fleet of hospital ships would allow the US to
respond quickly to such attacks in US coastal cities.
If there were a terrorist attack in Philadelphia, for
example, our hospital ships could be quickly called upon to
serve the area, thereby preventing the collapse of the
healthcare system.
The obvious drawback is the cost, but there seem to be many
pluses to this idea. Feedback? Tweaks?
Regards, Eric Yost trying to think outside the ship
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