There is no getting around the idea that our economy is hurting badly. Not only are the normal households trying to cut expenses and balance their budgets but the federal government is actively seeking ways to cut their costs as well. Many federally sponsored programs are on the verge of losing all or some of their urgently needed funding as our government tries desperately to sort out this financial nightmare.
Around the nation several areas have seen our current swine flu problems coming well in advance and have in the past had public health emergency exercises based upon this scenario. Many of these exercises were financed in part by federal, state and local governments in an effort to preserve the citizen’s health during a time of major crisis. By the use of these various results communities have developed plans that ensure the safety of their people.
The results of these studies have not only been used by the governments up and down the chain but also by the local business managers, public utility companies and other groups of people who would need this information to make accurate and informed decisions. From the cities fire departments or hospitals to the various grocery stores every agency would have a need for planning using this information.
Unfortunately with the vast number of federal budget cuts this scenarios is about to change. These cuts are threatening to end such important training exercises. This lose of funding will certainly endanger the state and local agencies to protect their people properly.
Take a few moments and visualize what the current situation could be like if these proposed budget cuts were already in place. Health departments are presently struggling to prepare for any sort of unpredictable emergencies and the funds are badly required to continue their work. No funds being available tend to hinder greatly the health agencies ability to develop an effective medicine to combat this strain of virus. We can rest assured that the future will certainly hold additional outbreaks of these unknown flu’s and some may perhaps be even worse then the present one.
This emergency is showing the American people why we need to stop any financial cuts from affecting our public health services. Any sort of reduction in this area would positively be devastating.
I leave you with this note in mind to think about this evening and perhaps we should be sending a copy of this article to our representatives in congress to prevent these cuts from taking place.
Copyright @ 2009 Joseph Parish