SARS scare - Government unprepared for outbreak

IF the public needed any proof of the lack of preparedness in this country in the event of an incidence of SARS, it was graphically illustrated in the case of the Chinese woman, who was considered a possible case of the virus.

Having presented herself on Friday evening at the Accident & Emergency unit in St Vincent’s Hospital with a high temperature, she was recognised as a possible case of SARS but released back into the community.

Subsequently, the gardaí had to be called in to find the woman in the hostel where she was staying and is now quarantined in another hospital.

The Minister for Health, Mícheál Martin, had to admit on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland yesterday that his department had not been advised of the case until Monday.

And while the woman tested negative for the virus yesterday, the fact that she had arrived in this country from Guangdong province in China, where the flu-like virus originated, can only add to the general concern that there are no safeguards in place at our airports.

Obviously, while there are no safeguards, such as the unobtrusive thermal-imaging system, there can be no control over the incidence of SARS likely to arrive in this country.

The policy, such as it is, of the Department of Health’s expert group on SARS, has drawn up perplexing guidelines for schools with pupils returning from affected areas.

They recommended that the schools contact the pupils before they return from abroad and advise them to get screened before travelling home.

It is ludicrous that precautions should be established on an ad-hoc basis.

The onus is on our own Government to ensure that steps are taken here to prevent, as far as humanly possible, any potential outbreak of the highly contagious virus.

Undoubtedly, the strike by the country’s public health doctors, whose job it is to investigate and monitor suspected outbreaks of infectious diseases, is compounding the situation. Their dispute with the department has, literally, being going on for years and it is rather unfortunate that their patience should run out at this critical time for the general health of the public and, particularly, the staging of the Special Olympics.

It is disingenuous of the minister to try to shift the blame onto the striking doctors, because the country in any case does not have sufficient isolation units in hospitals for patients, and not just for SARS but other infectious diseases.