Kaiser Grants $1 Million For Ebola Care

As the outbreak of Ebola has impacted the United States, Kaiser Permanente is trying to help contain the epidemic at its source.

The Oakland-based Kaiser has donated a total of $1 million to two healthcare relief organizations working in West Africa:  Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps. Both received grants of $500,000 apiece.

Kaiser officials said the two organizations were chosen for the donations because they have a strong infrastructure to deliver healthcare services in the region afflicted by Ebola, as well as a strong record of fiscal stewardship.

"The 2014 Ebola outbreak is the largest in history and the first in West Africa, where the affected countries have little healthcare infrastructure and minimal experience managing a public health emergency of this magnitude," said Raymond J. Baxter, a Kaiser senior vice president for community benefit. "It is of the utmost importance that we collaborate with experienced partner agencies on the ground, to treat and isolate the affected patients and ensure the safety of clinicians and others."

The current Ebola outbreak has been the worse in the approximately 40-year recorded history of the contagion. It has killed at least 6,000 in Africa in recent months. It also claimed a life on U.S. soil for the first time, when a patient died in a Dallas hospital earlier this week after apparently contracting Ebola during a recent trip to Liberia. Although there have been other suspected cases on U.S. soil, another has yet to surface.

Kaiser officials said they would earmark more donations toward addressing the Ebola outbreak if it is needed.