I'm watching Pres. Bush consoling a black woman and her child. A nice strong arm around the girls shoulders. A pillar of strength as opposed to a photo op that other person who preceded him would have.
As much as I did not like Clinton, he would have been better than Kerry. I just can't even imagine Kerry in this situation.
Clinton would have hugged people and listened to the locals, but Kerry would not.
I guess it means that I actually think Clinton does have some heart. I don't think Kerry has any.
Healthy evacuated before the sick, says Cerise who described the scene as heartbreaking
By the Capitol news bureau
The state’s top health officer said Friday he witnessed healthy people being evacuated from a New Orleans hospital, while patients using ventilators to breathe were left on the roof.
A teary-eyed Fred Cerise, a physician and the secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, shook his head as told the story during an interview Friday.
Cerise had worked three days tending patients in New Orleans and said the scene is heart-breaking.
Cerise said he returned to Baton Rouge to try and better coordinate the evacuation effort of the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans, consisting of Charity Hospital and University Hospital.
The medical facility is surrounded by deep water. It is without electricity and water. The toilets don’t work and the remaining generators are failing. Meanwhile, snipers have been shooting at departing helicopters and evacuees.
“The need is just overwhelming," Cerise said, and even with medical staff working around the clock, the demand far outweighs the people and supplies available.
Hospital staffers found a previously unused passageway between University Hospital and Big Charity. They ferry patients to a staging area in Big Charity, where the sick and injured are loaded onto trucks to cross the street. Patients then are wheeled through a Tulane University Hospital unit to a helicopter landing pad on the roof.
The evacuees then are moved to the nearby New Orleans arena, then to a helicopter pad for an arduous journey to other medical facilities, Cerise said.
Charity Hospital had about 230 patients and nearby University Hospital had about 120 patients at the time of the storm. In addition, to the sick and injured, several thousand others sought refuge in the hospitals during the storm.
Don Smithburg, who is charge of LSU’s public hospitals, said Friday the he has been unable to get accurate, up-to-date numbers of evacuees. But he said, the state was able to move 18 newborns from the neonatal intensive care unit and 10 well babies.
The evacuation is still under way, he said.
Smithburg said the evacuation effort is facing logistic and security concerns because the helicopters and hospital personnel were subjected to sniper fire Thursday. The situation stabilized when police units and armed soldiers were able to provide cover for the evacuation process.
Smithburg complained that efforts to deliver medical supplies, basic food and water to hospital staffers and patients have been turned back by armed personnel at the New Orleans city limits.
“There seems to be a lack of centralized command,” Smithburg said.
Once the evacuation is complete, Smithburg said the state might never use the huge, aging hospital again.
http://www.2theadvocate.com