Position Requirement on Health Care Workers, Essay Example

State your position on the requirement for health care workers returning from West Africa to undergo a mandatory 21 day isolation period.

In my opinion health care workersreturning from West Africa should undergo a mandatory period of isolation.  Anyinfectious disease surveillance requires isolation as a control measure, which must be undertaken. Persons who have attended to ebola patients are at high risk of the disease evenif not diagnosed. An ebolaoutbreat in America would be catastrophic.  As such,establishing quarantine for health care workers must be mandatory. According to Eysenbach (2006) 21 days should be the minimum for flu surveillance(Eysenbach, 2006). Ebola is beyond a flu category and while politicians may want to be discrete when addressing this issue, form a medical perspective this is the best way for preventing an outbreak in this country.

What would you recommend to your state governor (Congressman Alcee Lamar Hastings Fl District 20th) if a returning health care worker exposed to Ebola patients refused to comply with the imposed isolation policy?

My recommendation isfor the congressman to approach congress immediately for an executive action making this 21 mandatory isolation legal whereby no one can refuse, if it is not legislated. Public health quarantine in many states is legal and violation carries a penalty. Congressman Alcee Lamar Hastings Fl District 20^th was aformer judge who is conversant with the legal implications of refusing submission to quarantine. For example, in Alaska, he law pertains to ill people, but this is a peculiar case qith reference to exposure. While quarantine generally is legal for patients with the diseases so far a manadatory isolation for ebola has not beem legislated. Therefore, legislation would be necessary and penalties instituted to restrict persons from refusing to comply (National congress of state legislations (NCSL), 2014).

This model containing these three domains social, economic and political reflects from a political perspective the legislative approach recommended by congressman. The social aspect indicates that while the mandatory 21 day quarantine has not been legislated workers returning from West Africa are at high risk of infecting the population. Economically, it will increase health care costs if Americans are infected with this disease. Therefore legislate, quarantine and control health care costs for treating the disease. The major issue is economic because health care cost will escalate. Ebola is a difficult disease to treat and it is costly. Second is political because Americans are concerned why doctors from America have to go treat people in West Africa at the risk of being infected. Besides, when they become infected they are brought back into the country for treatment. Thirdly, is the social implication. Nurses have become infected treating a non- American. (The World Bank, 2014).

References

Eysenbach, G. (2006). Infodemiology: Tracking Flu-Related Searches on the Web for Syndromic Surveillance”. AMIA AnnuSymp;Proc 2006: 244–8.

National congress of state legislations (NCSL) (2014). State quarantine statues. Retreived onDecember 11^th, 2014 from http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-quarantine-and-isolation-statutes.aspx

The World Bank (2014). Update on the Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic on Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Retreived on December 11^th, 2014 from http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/growth/publication/economic-update-ebola-december