Red Tape Keeps 100s of Doctors From Caring for Katrina Victims

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Volunteer physicians are pouring in to care for the sick, but red tape is keeping hundreds of others from caring for Hurricane Katrina survivors while health problems escalate.

...

"The bell was rung, the e-mails were sent off. ...We all got off work and deployed," said one of the frustrated surgeons, Dr. Preston "Chip" Rich of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"We have tried so hard to do the right thing. It took us 30 hours to get here," he said. That government officials can't straighten out the mess and get them assigned to a relief effort now that they're just a few miles away "is just mind-boggling," he said.

...

As they talked with Mississippi officials about prospects of helping out there, other doctors complained that their offers of help also were turned away.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050904/D8CDKNCG0.html
(more at link)

I just cannot understand these reports of relief aid being turned away. This is unbelieveable.

I'm out of words, at this point...

Paperwork?? Red tape??

And people are dying -- due to red tape.

So what happens when the massive epidemics break out -- due to lack of health care professionals would could have done something.

"RED TAPE"?

We are a third world country -- no national health care -- and now zero care for the hurricane victims -- people are left to die unattended.

Homeland Security -- only if you are very rich.

We live in a "pay to play" nation in the US, the new American Dream. If you don't have the money, you're on your own. All that stuff about universal healthcare and making sure everybody has access to needed resources based on need as opposed to based on ability to pay is just socialism, which is "anti-American."