America's 4 Ebola Hospitals Can Only Hold 9 Patients

The two nurses who contracted Ebola in Dallas were transferred this week to two of the four highly specialized hospital centers in the U.S. that are designed to treat the disease, suggesting that health officials may have doubts about the ability of local hospitals to handle such patients.

The problem: These four specially equipped biocontainment facilities — in Nebraska, Montana, Maryland and Georgia — have the combined capacity to treat fewer than a dozen Ebola patients at one time.

See also: What Nurses Really Want to Say About Ebola

The limited number of Ebola beds at the four centers means that if the U.S. is forced to handle more than a dozen cases — either because the disease spreads further within the country, or more Americans become ill abroad and are brought to the U.S. for treatment — the burden will once again fall to the broader, inadequately trained American health system. Read more...

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