September 10, 2013
Saudi Arabia: A note from a MERS hospital
This morning I got a comment about my memo to the Minister of Health—not from the Minister, but from a doctor. It's an important document, and I'm giving it a post of its own:
Saudi Arabia: A note from a MERS hospital
This morning I got a comment about my memo to the Minister of Health—not from the Minister, but from a doctor. It's an important document, and I'm giving it a post of its own:
I totally agree with this letter and recommendations. We need to disclose the current situation and find out a way to report the cases using clear screening guidelines or even to declare the need for international help.
I wonder why we do not involve people who faced SARS a decade ago to hear from their experience. Hajj is coming where 2-3 million Muslims will come to Saudi Arabia to gather in one place for few days! Then they will go back to their countries! What are the precautions that we took in action? (Not clear)
As a medical staff I feel embarrassed with the performance of Ministry of Health so far and I feel unsafe from acquiring the virus based on the current actions. I am writing this reply while one of our residents in ICU with MERS and one ER nurse declared dead in the same hospital this week.
In fairness to the Ministry, it invited Dr. Allison McGeer from Canada, who gained a great deal of experience with SARS, to be part of a three-person team advising the Ministry on MERS late in the spring. But I'm grateful that Dr. "X" is in touch, and I hope he'll write again; it's invaluable to have a sense of how healthcare workers are dealing with MERS in their own hospitals.
I wonder why we do not involve people who faced SARS a decade ago to hear from their experience. Hajj is coming where 2-3 million Muslims will come to Saudi Arabia to gather in one place for few days! Then they will go back to their countries! What are the precautions that we took in action? (Not clear)
As a medical staff I feel embarrassed with the performance of Ministry of Health so far and I feel unsafe from acquiring the virus based on the current actions. I am writing this reply while one of our residents in ICU with MERS and one ER nurse declared dead in the same hospital this week.
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