The view from inside major medical centers
What our procedure here is we're not going to have opening statements or prepared papers. We're going to try and do this on a less formal question and answer basis. I will throw out some questions to the panelists, but encourage people to respond and engage in a dialogue on this. I think, as I say, we have a great deal of expertise that we can take advantage of here.
What struck me is a line from the secretary's remarks, which I think I heard him say it once before, but it is kind of startling when you really dissect it, when he said that any community that is relying on the federal government to come to its aid in a pandemic, or more broadly I guess disasters, is making a tragic mistake. I guess that's a wonderfully candid admission from the government. It's good we know that. We're obviously dealing here with people who have the other end of that responsibility in some ways. So I'm going to put you all on the spot and ask you, is your community ready to deal with the sorts of things that the secretary was talking about? And I think maybe if we just start on the far end with Tom Burke and go all the way through.
BURKE: I think the secretary was exactly right, and with our recent experience in Houston with both the aftermath of Katrina and then the subsequent onset of Hurricane Rita, we had very good – it's about as good a live drill as you could put together. But I think the success of the medical community there was largely based on local planning and local efforts. The refugee or evacuee areas that were set up for medical evacuees from the Gulf Coast were all manned by local physicians at the local evacuation centers. All of the health care was provided by local entities. In fact, the supporting services for housing and food and shelter and clothing were all based in the community. And it's that initial effort that really has to come from the local community, sort of people helping each other in a local way. It was in our community very well orchestrated by the county judge and by the mayor of the city, but really all of the areas in our part of Texas had local response teams that came out to meet the needs both of people evacuating from Louisiana and for subsequently people in the Texas area. After that, state and other kind of agencies that bring in better resources, more forceful kinds of services helped us through that period, but the initial time really depends on local preparation and local willingness to contribute to the effort.
KELLY: Okay, if you could –
KAHN: The Joslin Diabetes Center [is] in the middle of the Harvard medical campus, obviously a place surrounded by a lot of world-class hospitals, a very strong public health system, and there is no doubt that the city and the local medical area is very well versed in emergency medical care. But I would like to make a comment that kind of balance what was said about Houston, and say that I do think that one of the areas where I see us being less prepared is to think about what happens if the disaster involves the hospitals themselves.
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