I know that in your job you have office politics, and here it's no different. Oh, wait, yeah it kinda is. I am dealing with two. One is solved. One is evolving.
First the solved one. The other, stay tuned..
Here in acronymville a Difac is a "dining facility;" mostly staffed by foreign nationals. I am in charge of FOB medics who have to send me there charts to review and sign each day and call me if there is a problem. So one on them had a guy with a fever and jaundice. "Hmmm," I thought,"sounds like Hepatitis." So, I sent him home. He works in a Difac,hmm. A week later a second Difac guy shows up with similar symptoms. This ain't good. I notify the appropriate folks and we stop a bunch of these guys from cooking food. Turns out a bunch of them test positive for some liver aliment. Not sure what it is but we test their liver enzymes and there are notsogood. So, the Difac gets closed and the workers get put in quarantine. 10 here, 50 there. The place gets scrubbed, we do more testing and they come up negative for Hepatitis A. WTF? Hep A is the food borne type most common in food handlers and third world citizens. Hmmmmmmmmm. Joint head scratching occurs. Meanwhile I am the chief babysitter, heath care worker, spokesman, and all around nice guy to ur 10 shall we say "POWs" We gt them their own bathroom and shower and they are brought their meals but they can't leave the classroom they we have them housed in. We buy them cards and I bring them newspapers and rig a TV for them. They are super nice guys. They are the victims of their company not doing adequate screening. So, after two weeks of captivity, they are going home. I shook their hands and they thanked me for my kindness. I tried to get them other jobs here because they are the most medically screened workers on the planet. They could work at NASA. On the International Space Station. Cooking with TANG (old guy reference).
Turns out they have Hepatitis E. And they are having a paper written about them. So they are headed for India and the Philippines. So crisis over, but I am at a base called Leatherneck, temporarily.
Stand by for that story..........
As they say, "the vowels attack the bowels..." endemic to Inda not so much the Phillipines... Makes sense to send them away.
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