Frustrated taxpayers should understand this concept. The state has a limited amount of money and is expected to provide necessary services. Voters don’t plan on giving legislators more to work with, so cuts are inevitable.
Our public health-care system is in a similar predicament. There are only so many resources to go around and right now a hefty portion is going toward the prevention of possible illnesses related to bioterrorism, specifically smallpox. Meanwhile, basic and necessary needs — childhood vaccinations and tuberculosis prevention — are getting hit hard with cutbacks. Take a look at King County, which is scrambling to handle its worst tuberculosis outbreak in 30 years.
And the federal government shows no sign of flexibility on this one.
First it was anthrax. Now it’s smallpox. Those are just the bioterrorism illnesses. Toss in a little West Nile virus and some SARS and if you’re head isn’t swimming by now, it soon will be. Of course, there’s no guarantee health workers will be able to tend to your condition just yet. You might have to do a little self-diagnosing. As soon as they start work on one major health issue, they have to drop it for the next one. Our system is turning into a disease du jour.
We are fortunate in Snohomish County to have our hospitals coordinating their efforts and resources to respond to any health emergencies. The communication and relationships between the hospitals, law enforcement, local officials and the Snohomish Health District should be encouraging to those who live and work here. They are already hard at work developing plans to monitor and respond to bioterrorism attacks. And recent news articles have highlighted the work our health officials have done to prepare for any possible West Nile virus outbreaks later this summer.
No one is arguing we should drop the ball on homeland security preparedness. It would be foolish not to have plans and resources in place to address potential terrorist-related outbreaks. But these preparations must be in addition to, not in place of, the other illnesses and health-care needs that face our communities every day.
We have enough health emergencies to tackle without the federal government adding more to the list while declining to add more money to the pot. The feds cannot expect our public health system to put all its efforts and resources into protecting people from one or two potential threats at the expense of treating us for the diseases that already exist.
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