Tonto, you seem to think that they left living patients behind, and that nobody knew that the dead ones were there.
First, Memorial evacuated 70 critically ill patients on Sunday night. After that, no rescue helecopters were sent, so memorial arranged to get helecopters to evacuate the remaining patients. All living patients were evacuated by Friday.
“The conditions were abysmal,” Quigley said. “Worse than abysmal. The toilets were full. There was no running water, no electricity, and we were running out of drinking water. There was no food. And it was hotter than hell.”
The power went out early Monday. The sickest patients, roughly seventy or so, were evacuated by helicopter Sunday. Not until Wednesday morning did more helicopters appear. Quigley and other volunteers tried to get the attention of the numerous helicopters they could see hovering over the city. The sickest patients were brought up eight flights of stairs in sheet slings to the roof. Some patients were kept on the roof as long as 24 hours.
“We were standing there waving a sheet to get their attention,” he said.
Quigley says they saw helicopters from the Red Cross, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and the Army. One Army helicopter, which the volunteers on the roof managed to “flag down” wouldn’t land and refused to take anyone, even those remaining critically ill patients, because “they were full with rescue workers and could only pick up individuals one at a time off of roofs, which they stated they had been doing all day.”
Instead, Quigley says the Army helicopter dropped some food supplies that turned out to be just three or four boxes with tin cans of Vienna sausages.
These were not enough to feed the patients, let alone the staff or volunteers. Food and water supplies were dwindling.
After that the helicopters never returned to Memorial Hospital.
“We couldn’t figure out why they didn’t come back,” Bill said.
Tulane University Hospital had been evacuated, Quigley heard, but those at Memorial “were left to die or get out as best they could.”
At least ten patients died while awaiting rescue workers. Many died because their life-sustaining medical treatment required electricity.
“These were patients with oxygen tanks, on ventilators, and with IVs,” he explained.
“The nurses were heroic, the doctors did terrific work, and the administration, well, they didn’t know what to do,” Bill recounted, because “they were relying on information that didn’t come.”
...“Why were the Red Cross, Coast Guard, National Guard and Army helicopters there one day and gone the next?” he opined. “Who changed priorities?”
rawstory.com
1 September 2005
The World Socialist Web Site received the following email Wednesday describing the desperate situation facing patients and staff at a New Orleans hospital, cut off from the outside world amidst rising flood waters in the stricken city. The letter gives a sense of the plight of the city’s residents and the lack of organized aid from local, state or national authorities.
...Dear Friends:
There are about 1,300 people here who need help. I would appreciate it if you could forward this information to federal and state authorities and press in the US and in Louisiana to make sure these sick people are cared for. I am in Memorial Hospital in New Orleans. We have nearly 200 very sick people, hundreds of staff and hundreds more families.
The hospital has some basic electricity but many rooms have no electricity and many stairwells have no electricity. There is no a/c and no external windows. We cannot phone out and can receive few incoming calls. The water is rising and the hospital is already surrounded by water. Once the water hits the first floor, the computers, the email, all intercoms, and all internal communication inside the hospital will cease.
Our phones do not work so this is the only way I can reach out. This is not official but what I have been able to find out from listening to many, many people here.
The City of New Orleans is completely overwhelmed. No electricity. Incredible wind damage and now a broken levee that is flooding the city even further. Please make sure that someone is working to make sure these sick people and their families are helped.
They need care. For hours they have been announcing that patients are going to be medivaced (is this a word?) to other hospitals and shelters. But little real action so far. I know there is much, much to do out there, but these sick people need attention asap.
Please reach out in whatever way you can to make sure these folks are cared for.
Peace and love,
Bill Quigley
* * *
Update
There are well over 1,200 people still in the Tenet Memorial Hospital on Napoleon in New Orleans. Predictions are that flood waters will continue to rise another 9 feet tonight. Latest info is that they have started helicoptering out people, but very small numbers, less than 100 since 1 pm.
Giving you this update because we may have no electricity before long. Our phone numbers are 504-897-4531 and 504-897-4530. We cannot call out.
Feel free to call us or give numbers to media to call us. They are estimating that it may take several days to evacuate these people. Water, electricity, food, security—all will be gone by then. Please help by notifying the press and the government. People are hoping that friends around the country can help out.
Thanks for giving people hope.
Peace,
Bill Quigley
wsws.org
With reports of armed men trying to break into hospitals, hijackers surrounding a medical resupply truck and deteriorating conditions, a national hospital corporation hired a fleet of private helicopters to evacuate Memorial Medical Center on Thursday.
"We were advised by officials on the ground to take the matter into our own hands," said Trevor Fetter, president and CEO of Tenet Healthcare Corp., which runs Memorial Medical.
cnn.com
Rescue workers have removed 45 bodies from a downtown New Orleans hospital that was surrounded by floodwaters from Katrina, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals said.
The bodies were recovered Sunday from Memorial Medical Center, spokeswoman Melissa Walker said.
Tenet Healthcare Corp., the company that owns the hospital, said in a statement that "a significant number had passed before the hurricane." (Watch the grim process of recovering victims -- 1:34)
Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini wrote that the hospital was told Wednesday "that we were on our own to evacuate, [and] we brought our own helicopters to take the patients out."
He said, "Every living patient was evacuated by Friday afternoon."
The statement said that once all of the patients were evacuated, officials brought in guards to secure the hospital until the coroner could remove the bodies.
Officials have confirmed 423 deaths in Louisiana in the wake of the hurricane.
cnn.com
FWIW, there will be many more bodies "found" in various hospitals:
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations.
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