Stacker, I'll confess to picking weak references to prove the point of the potential for mistakes to be made. Perhaps I should have instead commented on the increasing, and blurry to an outsider, commercialisation of the NHS.
In my limited interactions with the staff of the local hospital stroke unit, I can say that whilst the Doctors spoke fluent English, the nurses and ancillary staff spoke a level of English enough to merely irritate. These aren't the staff you would expect to be the first picks of the world's most significant healthcare system. For as good as these nurses/ healthcare givers (or whatever the Job-title of the week is) are, I don't trust that there can't be a significant misunderstanding between the multi-lingual soup that is the NHS' cheap side. I'm thinking along the lines of a game of Chinese whispers: 'Take these sheets to the incinerator' turns into 'Give them a quick rinse and whack 'em back in the linen cupboard'.
I speak of 'young and reckless' mainly from remembering a recent news story in which a porter of said description was caught posting photos, on Facebook, of himself dressed in a sick/deceased elderly lady's underwear. I have no illusions that to even become a nurse requires much dedication, willpower and perhaps, finance; obviously nobody with that much emotional investment in a career would be likely to make a mistake that serious, but what concerns me are the back-room types that handle infected materials for disposal etc. As an outsider, knowing that the NHS, as with most things, is being outsourced, the likely areas in my mind for contracting out are those exact support roles. Lowest bidder staff fill those jobs. Maybe some of them do take it seriously. A whole lot more of them will be waiting for their shift to end to get out on the lash. For someone like that it's just a job; low paid, monotonous, 9-5. That sort of job will make people complacent. They will get bored, and they will make mistakes.
Contractorisation is just another way of cheapening the end product, providing less quality and less versatility for less cost.
I have no insight into the containment of the infected in a hospital situation, nor to the disposal of the contaminated materials. But I would bet that at some point in the chain those sheets will be handed over to the cheap, bored staff of Ebolacleaners4S and that increases the risk of transmission.
I am a cynic of most things. Someone has to disagree for the sake of argument. One day I will be right
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