The article states that hospitals are not evacuated during hurricanes.
The hospitals were not required to follow the evacuation order issued by Mayor Nagin on Sunday, Aug. 28. "Hospitals don't evacuate," said John A. Matessino, president of the Louisiana Hospital Association, a trade association. "Hospitals stay in place."
It makes sense -- the doctors, nurses, etc., are on the front line, just like EMTs and cops and firefighters.
Remember, firefighters are the ones who run *into* burning buildings?
Doctors and nurses have to be there for emergencies.
I know what it says, what I am saying is that folks NEEDED to be evactuated BEFORE the storm. I am not saying what policy is. I am saying what should be done. In lieu of that, perhaps a generator on a non-flooding floor, with TONS of fuel, and with portable A/C units that could be used to save overall power in certain rooms where you could group these people in. Thats how it is with humans, you live and learn. I did.
I live in a city where the largest hospital is located on a river. Every functional part of the hospital, including the generators, is at least 12 feet above the largest recorded high tide.
We have never had a flood, nor have we had a direct hit from a hurricane in recorded history, but we are better prepared than NOLA was , despite their long history of storms and unique vulnerability to flooding.
I have difficulty wrapping my mind around the magnitude of their incompetence. Everyone knew a storm like this would come, and they all closed their eyes and pretended it wouldn't happen on their watch.
THe problems with a couple of the hospitals was that they put their generators in the basements. Under sea level. Unprotected from flooding.
Each hospital has it's own paid staff to handle emergency preparedness. Some on the left think that the President of hte United States should have known that a hospital in a bowl under sea level would put their generator in the basement, and made them fix it.
I'm hopeful that when they fix the hospitals, they will make sure that all critical infrastructure items are above flood level.
If the generators don't get flooded, the hospitals still have power. If the hospitals have storerooms, they have supplies they need. And if thousands of other people don't stubbornly stay home, helicopters can focus on bringing food and supplies to the hospitals where people COULDN'T evacuate, instead of wasting all their time picking people off of roofs who were perfectly capable of walking or driving out of harm's way.
So I'm not "blaming" non-evacuees for their own plight, I guess I'm blaming them for overtaxing the rescue effort and therefore endangering OTHERS.
Well, until they can make hospitals flood-proof (not to mention criminal-proof), those below sea level need to rethink their no-evacuation policy.
Why are Louisiana hospitals not required to evacuate at least their critical patients when the rest of the area evacuates? From the current Hurricane Rita live thread regarding Key West hospitals :
THIS is proper preparedness -- AP excerpt: The state was sending a National Guard cargo plane to evacuate 22 patients from Key West's hospital to Sebring, near Lake Okeechobee, Florida. Several critically ill patients already had been evacuated to hospitals in Miami.
Thank goodness for Jeb Bush.
653 posted on 09/19/2005 12:36:53 PM EDT by varina davis
Who says? If the mayor had done his job, any patient that could be moved would have been out of there.
Doctors and nurses are a different issue, as they are, indeed, front line responders. But then, a so-called delay in rescue efforts can't be blamed for their deaths, since they would have stayed anyway.
Hospitals don't evacuate... Working in the health sector, we take that to mean that the hospital staff does not evacuate. However, all patients that can be evacuated should be!