Report Slams Medical Response to Katrina

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_MEDICAL_RESPONSE?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-10-01-46-51


"The entire system is broken and we need to fix it before the next major disaster strikes, whether it's another hurricane or - Heaven help us - a terrorist attack," said U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La.


However, doctors said "urgent requests for pain medication, IV lines, catheters, and other equipment were held up for days" because of disorganization and lack of money, according to the report. It described doctors using manual resuscitation masks rather than ventilators for hours and patients lying on the floor in New Orleans' international airport.

It also said medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile failed to reach medical teams within 12 hours, as stipulated under disaster plans, instead taking three days to get to New Orleans - and even then there was a shortage.

Doctors also complained of being stymied by a lack of satellite telephones, needed because land lines were out and cellular phone service was spotty.

and was stuck on the highway outside NO for five days, forbidden by FEMA to enter the city.

They had medicines, bandages, clean water, and helping hands and FEMA wouldn't allow them in.

Part of the problem was the new FEMA playbook that only dealt with an outbreak of contagious illness from a terrorist attack. Sealing the city might make sense, then. However, nobody on the ground seemed to be capable of making any decision at all outside that inappropriate plan, and people died as a result.

A fish rots from the head down. This is no clearer than in the agencies the GOP has traditionally used as dumping grounds for their least competent donors who feel entitled to patronage jobs. FEMA heads the list.

What I am wondering is if the Dems were doing this hearing, WHY did they let the report go into the "release on Friday so no one will notice it" trap?
Maybe they did announce it earlier in the week and the f'd up chimp lapdog MSM waited til the wee hours last night to publish the information..just thinking that the Dems should have held it til Monday morning and made more of a public fuss about it.

weeks after Katrina struck, the navy sent a medical ship to help with the needs of the citizens. The only problem was, the state of Mississippi had not "licensed" the ship as a state approved facility so doctors and the medical care providers here could not send patients to it.

Catch Congressman Taylor's comments at the hearing on Thursday, when Mississippi reps gave their testimony regarding the "successes" of FEMA and the handling of the storm.

:grr:

... should hire Michael Brown's new disaster preparedness consulting company to 'fix' the problems.

(You know, I shouldn't have said that - they probably will!)

to fly critically ill patients to Nashville -- at his own expense -- for treatment and care . . . since the procedure wasn't in their play book, they couldn't handle it . . .

apparently there's no place for thinking and human judgement in the FEMA bureaucracy . . . the whole thing needs to be dismantled and something that actually helps people in emergency situations created in its place . . .

Counties (especially St Bernards) would call in for medical supplies and 48 hrs later I would hear a second, even more desperate, request for antibiotics, IV fluids, anti-diarrhea medicine...the list went on and on each time. There were people on DU transcribing the live radio broadcasts and it was very scary and chilling to hear the lack of leadership. The people needing help might as well have been in a third world country.
One field worker had a lady who had run out of her potassium pills and when the field person called for advice from the main HQ, he was told "we are not set up to handle chronic problems"...think of all the people with chronic illnesses who were screwed (possibly fatally) because of this...and this was several days post-Katrina.
I kept wondering why the hell they didn't set up a medical/medicine HQ on that Navy hospital ship, have someone call the counties EVERY day, ask for a list of needs, fly the stuff out via helicopter/military aircraft EVERYday.

There are things that the government is needed for. One is public health that is not able to be met by private providers. Emergencies such as this are when the gvt needs to help and they didn't. Yes the situation was chaotic, changing moment to moment, but lack of decent communication on the ground only made it worse. Some groups and individuals (Emergency Ops and Red Cross) had such ego problems beyond the gvt ineptitude that only made it worse also.

It wasn't just New Orleans, but the MS and LA coasts also. Please remember that New Orleans was not the only place affected, just the most concentrated population place (that got flooded too, and had many media there to cover it). The LA coast, the Houma nation, the MS coast were wiped out and have not gotten the help they need yet either.

Not being able to get insulin 3 wks after Katrina, having to hand deliver it to individuals scattered about the MS coast because they couldn't get out, didn't have a FEMA number yet and even if they did there was nowhere to get it beyond what people donated and delivered is wrong.

If I were queen of the universe, I'd get some sort of ability to communicate in a disaster put firmly in place. I'd also appoint people who could positively multi-task and leave their egos out of any response.

impeachement
peace

Apparently, they had a "bird flu disaster" practice run and per the regime, it went "quite well"....which to me translates to: Red state/areas are covered, the Blue areas we will quarantine and let rot"

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20051210/2005-12-10T200755Z_01_RID567810_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-BIRDFLU-USA-DC.html

Warning an outbreak may be inevitable, the White House on Saturday conducted a test of its readiness for a feared bird flu pandemic and said federal agencies fared "quite well" without offering any details.

Cabinet secretaries, military leaders and other top officials took part in the four-hour tabletop drill, which officials said was designed to assess the level of federal preparedness for a possible outbreak of bird flu or another deadly virus.

"This is about being ready for what inevitably will come," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said.

But the White House refused to divulge details about the exercise and the test results, and officials said afterward that it was clear that state and local governments would have to assume a leading role.

Whatever the disaster, flood, hurricane, tornado, snow, fire, earthquake, flu, whatever. Prepare your kit and keep it up to date with AT LEAST 1 weeks worth of food/water, because unless you are very lucky you will be on your own for at least that long. You can stretch 1 wk into a couple, but a months worth is even better.

... to think that people inside and near the affected areas could simply swing into action. Even if, in a perfect world, virtually the entire population of Louisiana and Mississippi were certified paramedics with basements crammed full of emergency medical supplies, how were they supposed to reach the people who needed treatment? No roads, no electrical power, no communications ... I suspect that even those who dislike "big government" would agree that there has to be some role for the authorities during disasters (something other than running around with guns, which is all that this particular administration seems to feel like doing).