University of California Hospitals Say They're Ready to Take on Ebola Cases

The University of California has announced that all five of its medical centers are “positioned” to treat any potential Ebola patient and, as a result, have volunteered their services in an announcement made on Friday to the California Department of Public Health. 

“All of the UC Medical Centers specialize in complex care and operate as or staff Level One trauma centers. We appreciate their leadership role in willingness to treat Ebola patients,” said Dr. Ron Chapman, director of California’s public health agency, according to the Sacramento Business Journal. 

And according to Dr. John Stobo, UC’s senior vice president for health sciences and services, all of UC’s medical centers “are far along” in their preparedness for Ebola. He noted that “stepping up to a public health crisis is what these medical centers do.”

These hospitals include the UCSF Medical Center and UC Davis Medical Center in Northern California; and UCLA Medical Center, UC San Diego Medical Center and UC Irvine Medical Center in Southern California.

Friday’s announcement from the University of California reportedly pertains to any California-generated cases of Ebola, notes the Journal. The UC hospitals have not been named by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or other federal authorities as treatment centers for patients being brought into the United States by the U.S. State Department.

Currently four specialty hospitals throughout the U.S., that are equipped with a biocontainment ward, will continue to fulfill that role. They are located in Maryland (National Institutes of Health specialty center), Atlanta (Emory University Hospital), Nebraska (Nebraska Medical Center at the University of Nebraska) and Montana (Saint Patrick Hospital in Missoula).

Despite several scares, there have been no confirmed cases of Ebola in California yet. 

A New York emergency room doctor, who had returned from volunteering with Doctors Without Borders in West Africa, became the fourth diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States on Thursday.