Byline: SETH BORENSTEIN Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON -- America's public health system -- especially its front-line emergency rooms -- is not ready for an outbreak of SARS or a similar infectious disease, according to a new government report and top trauma doctors.
``Most hospitals lack adequate equipment, isolation facilities, and staff to treat a large increase in the number of patients for an infectious diseases such as SARS,'' the U.S. General Accounting Office reported in testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday.
``We're way behind,'' said GAO health care director Janet Heinrich in an interview Wednesday.
And emergency room doctors, meeting in Washington, told Knight Ridder Newspapers that such an outbreak could collapse an …
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