I recently returned from a month long cruise during which our ship was infected with Norovirus among other things. Apparently Princess Cruise Line was aware of the problem but chose to continue their schedule anyway, without warning any of its new would be passengers. They did inform us a month before the departure that two of the ports for which we booked the cruise were being cancelled because of a problem that Princess had with one of their engines. When I suggested that we may want to cancel we were informed that we would only be refunded with vouchers, part of which would be on an airline we would never use again. So, we went, reluctantly. If you google “Sea Princess, trip from hell” you can discover more detail about this voyage. Because of the norovirus, the dining areas were supposed to be using universal health standard precautions; however, the staff in the buffet area was incredibly lax in following those guidelines. Additionally, we were stranded on a dock for over 4 hours because a gale wind arose that supposedly no one knew was coming? Many elderly people stood with walkers and canes and the cruise staff could not think of anything to do about finding shelter or comfort? When I asked about a bathroom and received an inadequate answer I actually had to direct them to arrange for a van to transport people to a bathroom. The question is, do the Keystone Kops run everything today? Doesn’t anyone have a brain? Is there no one who can take their job seriously and do what is necessary? I was just wondering———–

But even more troubling than enduring a vacation gone wrong are the recent examples of inadequacies with the Secret Service and those involved in the Ebola case in America. While the errors of judgment with the White House incident are surely troubling, the handling of the Ebola situation is more than frightening to me. When we contemplated our trip last March I was reading about the spreading Ebola epidemic in Africa and I expressed some fear of travel in August due to the risk of Ebola exposure through air flight. No one of authority seemed to take this threat seriously so we continued with our plans. Now 6 months later we have a case of Ebola here in this country and it continues to spread rapidly in Africa with thousands of deaths. We were reassured again and again, that in the unlikely event that Ebola would find its way here that our health care system was completely prepared to handle it.

Here is the problem as I see it. The responsible and competent operation of the cruise line, the secret service, and the health care system are completely dependent on the individual functioning of everyone involved. Often, it just takes one human error to cause a calamity. Only one individual! And sadly, in my observation of people at work these days, not too many people take their jobs very seriously anymore. In addition, those in higher positions of authority are too busy enjoying their perks to actually supervise what is going on around them.

Even when someone takes their job seriously in the health care field, it is very easy for contamination to occur. Having consulted in many nursing facilities over the course of many years, I personally witnessed competent individuals caring for patients with contagious infections while properly wearing their protective gloves. However, they would open the bathroom door with the gloves on and sometimes the room door as well when they finished. There were other things they sometimes touched while still gloved and all of these areas were potentially contaminated. Cdiff and MRSA are easily spread within health care facilities and more than likely it is not the patient who is doing the spreading!

So back to the case of Ebola in our country. We have already witnessed once again a rapidly cascading series of errors. Ebola is an illness about which we cannot afford to make mistakes. The one case will turn to two and most likely more. I hope I am wrong. I hope that the CDC does not remain stuck in arrogant attitudes that prevent them from seeing this threat in a new light. I hope that someone of vision takes the reigns of authority and begins to make better decisions about allowing air travelers from stricken countries to come here, someone who takes better precautions about isolating potentially exposed individuals so that the number of people exposed does not continue to grow. And someone who arranges better care for those frightened individuals who are in isolation, in terms of cleaning their exposed environment. Not one other individual in America should have to suffer this horrible illness unless the bumbling Keystone Kops remain in charge. It’s time to wake up to our failures and to begin to wonder why so many institutional operations are incompetent. The problem includes not only careless workers and their tunnel visioned supervisors, but also the management systems who fail to see the loopholes where failures occur.

I’m not really sure why it is occurring, but not enough people today have any sense of pride in their work. Perhaps we are spoiled and too rooted in our own issues. Or perhaps, as I’ve said before, we don’t really think enough. Whatever the problem, I know that you will agree we are always having to phone somebody about an appliance, a phone, a computer not working, a bill is incorrect, and just try getting a correct answer from India! It’s time for the Keystone Kops [and this definitely includes Congress] to bequeath our institutions and businesses to individuals of integrity who will take charge with competent authority. But who will that be? How do we fix this? I was just wondering——