Was Ebola Patient Already Dead When Texas Hospital Announced It Was Giving Him Experimental Drug?

Texas Presbyterian Hospital made a series of mistakes, which ended in the death of Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan. But none of these mistakes were malicious or purposeful.  And I hope that all of us can reflect and learn from this tragic devolution of events.  Some of what I am about to say may sound hard to believe, but reality sometimes is.

1. Duncan was given a perfunctory exam in the Presbyterian Hospital ER and sent home because no one differentiated him from the mass of minorities who show up at that ER sick, but without insurance or any other means of paying for treatment.  Yes, the hospital staff was on the look-out for Ebola. But they assumed at a subconscious level that they would receive forewarning and the patient would be a healthcare worker flown in from Liberia, rather than a native of the country.

2.  When Duncan was finally brought back to the hospital by ambulance, the hospital staff assumed that the only reason people were dying from Ebola in Africa was because the few doctors and clinics that were functioning in the affected countries  probably didn't know what they were doing.  In short, Americans and Europeans often see African professionals or those working in Africa as not only lacking the same quality of facilities as we have here, but probably lacking the same medical skills. But on the latter score, they are wrong.  So. . . the doctors at Presbyterian assumed that they could get in the boxing ring with Ebola and whip it's ass with their eyes closed, but Ebola tko'd every last one of them. When they regained metaphorical consciousness, they were faced with the horrifying realization that Ebola had claimed their patient. He was dead. 

3.  This happened so fast, that the Hospital had a new public relations nightmare. The doctors either hadn't asked the CDC for experimental drugs because they thought they had the situation under control, or perhaps they had asked, but it took time to arrive.  Duncan died Sunday morning, but the Hospital covered-up the actual event, claimng that his situation had deteriorated from serious to critical (but that he was still alive).

4. Over the course of the next two days they back pedaled, claiming to give him one of the experimental drugs, even though they also announced that he was on a ventilator and dialysis.  

5.  Having filled in the obvious PR holes in the man's care, the Hospital could then announce to the public that he passed away on Wednesday morning.

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