NYC: Do not use "Ebola" on Radio

[rr60]

FDNY instructs all responders not to use "E" word on the radio.

911 dispatchers forbidden from saying ‘Ebola’ on the radio | New York Post

 

[rapidcharger]

What a convenient excuse for the other "E" word.

 

[JoeyC]

"City officials are so jittery about causing widespread Ebola panic."

But the nypost.com is not so jittery...

from the article:

But at least one company — the city’s main supplier of body bags — is ready to pitch in should the outbreak turn into an all-out crisis.
“We have more than 100,000 bags on hand,” assured company vice president Basheer Mahar.

 

[PhillyPhoto]

What a convenient excuse for the other "E" word.

If 2 terrorist attacks didn't do it, a little health scare won't. NYC would be the darling child for it (along with LA), yet neither PD nor FD are, now why is that? But a little Podunk town finds out they're being streamed and it's the end of the world.

Back on topic, they have other means to communicate with the people in the field, so this actually makes sense.

 

[TampaTyron]

Hospitals here in the Tampa area are doing the same. I can vouch for at least 3 Hospitals in the area that have a "no E word on the radio" policy. TT

 

[MTS2000des]

NYC is holding out for 700MHz LTE public safety- in the meantime they are sticking with UHF conventional.

They do have a couple of 700/800 DTRS's in service used by the DoITT, Mayor's office, and NYPD has radio cahces they can grab from. AES-256 equipped too.

 

[iMONITOR]

Transparency in government!

 

[exkalibur]

You've got to be kidding me. They can't use Ebola on the radio?

Ugh.

 

[nosoup4u]

Unless you happen to have it, then tell everyone.

 

[mitbr]

Sssssshh its a secret we don't want the public to know Ebola is spreading. Please don't tell anyone.

 

[iamhere300]

So they tell the unit they should use "universal precautions"? WTF?

Everyone involved with patient care should be using "universal precautions" with every patient, long before this Ebola issue.

Sheesh.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

Although we don't have a policy on it (yet) within my agency, no one in their right mind is actually going to use that term over the radio. The unwanted and unnecessary calamity and media attention it would draw would be ridiculous.

I fully back the NYC's decision on this.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

So they tell the unit they should use "universal precautions"? WTF?

Everyone involved with patient care should be using "universal precautions" with every patient, long before this Ebola issue.

Sheesh.

Since they don't normally tell units to use UP, being told that over the radio serves as a "heads up" for the responding units. Rest assured that they're already already using UP, it's nothing but a "hey, FYI" over the radio.

 

[RiceCake]

Well, the doomsday scenario is Ebola becomes airbourne, maybe NYC is just striving for completeness to keep it from becoming radiobourne.

 

[cdknapp]

I know most of the casino/hotels in Las Vegas have a very strict policy of never using the work 'fire' over any of their radios, and instead use a code for anything involving the term. Even when the fire department is requested for any reason (even EMS), they are referred to as "(code) department". This is due to the prior fires that hotels have had in town, and they never want any guest hearing the word fire coming over ANY radio, as to not evoke fear or panic.
I know there's an argument about use of earsets etc. That's not the point here. The point is they don't want guest overhearing 'that' word over the radio, in case the only hear part of the transmission then surmise there's a non existent situation.

I would imagine that is exactly what is going on here with the "E" word as well. And if you think about it, it really isn't bad policy.

 

[kg4ojj]

After 9/11, the word anthrax quickly disappeared from the radio and was replaced (locally) with Code Alpha.

It-that-shall-not-be-named would be a mouthful to say, too.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Citywide173]

There is the problem that a major fire department ran into about 15 years ago, when they told a responding company to make sure they used "universal precautions" on the call they were responding to. Since "universal precautions", or by that time, "body substance isolation" was an ingrained part of every response, a jury determined that it was a code word to indicate the patient's HIV status, and as such was a violation of ADA legislation that protects people with "socially unacceptable diseases."

In my system, it's referred to as an illness and assigned the type code of ILL1, ILL2 or ILL3 based on the patient's acuity. Dispatchers give out the type code, address, floor/apartment, incident number and time dispatched. All other activity is obtained from the mobile workstation. NYC is supposedly using the same Intergraph system, so I don't know why they have to be so secretive-proper SOP in the first place would make this completely unnecessary.

 

[wbswetnam]

I think the policy makes sense... it's to prevent the spread of panic. For this reason, hospitals use codes in their announcements. For example, in many hospitals, a page for "Dr. Red" usually means a fire.

 

[K4IHS]

My daughter in Toledo, OH works in the medical field. Today the hospital she works for issued a memo for employees not to use the word ebola. Instead they were instructed to use the term EVD... which stands for ebola virus disease.

 

[SCPD]

Is the "L" word safe to say?