Ebola Mis-steps or Is Texas Presbyterian Hospital's ER Run By Computerized Robots?

Hospital Robots

Yes, "mistakes were made", as politicians and lawyers have accustomed us to hearing by way of excuses.  And it is true. Our world is exponentially complex and we are only human.  But for officials at Texas Presbyterian Hospital to proclaim that they sent home an Ebola-infected man because of a computer glitch is, well. . .  insulting to everyone's intelligence.  Surely, they can come up with a better excuse than that.  As for the truth, we won't be getting that anytime soon, because the media seems content with whatever fanciful press releases the hospital puts out.  If, however, you have an interest in understanding what actually happened, do read my last post:  The Real Reason Man Infected with Ebola not Admitted to Hospital.

As for hospital's claim that the intake form did not have an entry space to specify what part of Africa the man came from, that may be true.  But it is nonsensical if used as an excuse for everyone overlooking the fact that the patient had just arrived from Liberia, which is in the midst of an uncontrolled Ebola epidemic.  The nurse that input the information, did she then take the rest of the day off, and rush out of the door so fast that she wouldn't even have stopped a minute to chat with a colleague about the interesting coincidence of a patient turning up from Ebola-infested Liberia with a fever?  According to hospital officials, the staff had met just this week to discuss the possibility of having to confront Ebola.

This was no damned computer glitch.  This was racism and the invisibility cloak it throws around its victims.  The man was African and uninsured.  He was ushered out the door like all emergency room patients, who fall into his demographic, (perhaps with the exception of a person brought in bleeding like a sieve from gunshot wounds.)

This is what needs to be fixed.  But I guess it's easier to blame the problem on a computer program, for which new software will do the trick.  Of course that's only if the ER is run by robots in the first place. 
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