Would 1,586 excellent doctors help? ....nah...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06628385.htm

U.S. gives Cuba cold shoulder over aid offer
06 Sep 2005 21:01:08 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) - The United States gave longtime foe Cuba the cold shoulder on Tuesday over its offer to send more than 1,500 doctors to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, which created a humanitarian disaster after pummeling the U.S. Gulf Coast.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. officials were reviewing Cuba's offer but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had indicated there was a "robust" response from U.S. doctors who have volunteered to help.

Asked whether this meant Cuba's doctors would not be needed, McCormack replied: "No, I'm not saying that. What I'm trying to do is describe for you the facts of what the response has been. And in terms of the international offers of assistance, our criterion is: What's needed?"

Cuban President Fidel Castro has complained Washington has not responded to its offer and on Sunday he gathered 1,586 doctors in white uniforms ready to be flown to the United States with satchels of medical supplies.

"Go forth, generous defenders of health and life, conquerors of pain and death," the 79-year-old Cuban leader said to the medics, who have been on stand-by in Havana for several days.
..more..

Fund to make sure that you money goes immediately to help the victims not held back by the American Red Cross Republican appointed "leadership" and turned over to the GOP slush fund as the donations to the families of 911 were. I think Bushco is still keeping the Red Cross out of New Orleans.

Reminds me of Fallujah and the soldiers who testified at the Canadian Refugee Court before being granted asylum in Canada so they don't have to commit more atrocities in Iraq or be subjected to torture in the Brig - The US military is surrounding Iraqi villages with razor sharp barbed wire as an easy way to make a Concentration Camp. That is what New Orleans and the people trapped there has been and still is and the deflection about people not wanting to leave is another distraction from what is still going on in their martial law experiment.


From Daily Kos:

That's more true than you'd ever imagine... (4.00 / 3)

Take a look at the absurd amount of cash American Red Cross chief Bonnie McElveen-Hunter has donated to the GOP:

http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Bonnie_McElveen-Hunter.php

straight outta central casting...no?

Know the truth. Know the facts. Campaign contributions do not lie.

-- was not speaking (none / 0)

about volunteers and workers, but the top people in the agency. I've put in 100s of hours for United Way, (1000s for other agencies, I even was on a Board of another non-profit) but their management(United Way) got corrupt, too; and when it happens they need to be called on it.

--When I post that (4.00 / 3)

I thought maybe I went too far, to say the Red Cross was more concern with "white" people that of color...any color. BUT after hearing the Executive Director and Chairman talk on Larry King...well, I have never seen such cold heart people(bitchs)...."we do not do search and rescue!" Excuse me? Everyone in the world with a TV knew where these people were...they are covering their tracks, and YES if it had been 15,000 middle class white folk, they would have had water by at least day 3. AND I still donated to them, because I did not know who else to donate to.

Because we see babies starving in N.O., I am sure they have gotten a shit load of money. AND the people are still dying. I heard NO remorse in their voices! NONE! Just excuses.

Our president does not seem to believe in science or scientific studies... A Leader has VISION, which Bush does not, we are leaderless....! Gore/Clark 2008

Is this a standard support operation thing? Does anyone have knowledge of relief efforts in general?

This seems odd to me, but then the Red Cross always asks for donations, not manpower, so maybe not.

could save lives, in this STILL on-going genocide.

Bush said he would ask the countries, including Israel who also offered doctors with medical supplies, for cash money "that we take care of our own." think it was MSNBC article the headline says that Condi will accept help but the chimp says only "cash money".

~~~~~~~~

http://dailykos.com/story/2005/9/5/42722/21410

Doctors banned from helping Katrina Victims
by AHiddenSaint

Mon Sep 5th, 2005 at 01:27:22 PDT
It is late here and I'm about to head to bed, but this story is scary. I'll try to stay up to see a few responses and change this dairy if need be, but the moderators at dailykos I give permission to delete if this dairy is a repeat or change if need be in order to help the information. What matters most is that these facts get out and people see them.

Victims of Katrina might have been helped, but red-tape kept the doctors who wanted to help out.

Among the doctors stymied from helping out are 100 surgeons and paramedics in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital, developed with millions of tax dollars for just such emergencies, marooned in rural Mississippi.

"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.


AHiddenSaint's diary :: ::

"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.

While the doctors wait, the first signs of disease began to emerge Saturday: A Mississippi shelter was closed after 20 residents got sick with dysentery, probably from drinking contaminated water.

How many lives could have been saved if these doctors were allowed in to help Katrina victims?

"How crazy is that?" he complained in an e-mail to his daughter.

Dr. Jeffrey Guy, a trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt University who has been in contact with the mobile hospital doctors, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, "There are entire hospitals that are contacting me, saying, 'We need to take on patients," ' but they can't get through the bureaucracy.

"The crime of this story is, you've got millions of dollars in assets and it's not deployed," he said. "We mount a better response in a Third World country."

Could this be one of many reasons why the response to Katrina was so bad?

As hurricane survivors died along roadsides and at shelters where they were told to take refuge, or pleaded for food and water or a ride to an overcrowded shelter, members of Congress called for hearings to find out how the response to this disaster could have failed so badly when the nation has spent unprecedented billions of dollars in the name of homeland security.

But the answer may not be much of a mystery.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, once a powerful independent agency focused solely on responding to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters that occur on average about four times a month, was placed within the huge Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Homeland Security sends $1.1 billion each year to states to combat terrorism, but $180 million to help prepare for such disasters as Katrina. Much of the terrorism grant money is given under conditions that specifically exclude spending it on items or personnel that would be used in responding to hazards other than terrorism.

Could this have been prevented?

On the sixth day of disaster and despair, an urgent new problem erupted: disease. A suspected outbreak of dysentery compelled authorities in Biloxi, Miss., to hurriedly evacuate hundreds of people from a shelter. Medical experts have warned of epidemics sweeping through crowded, unsanitary shelters.

Thousands were believed dead throughout the region, and authorities said dozens were dying each day from the cumulative effects of Hurricane Katrina.

How many is the question?