I felt the same way, sort of!
But I am so furious about the lies upon lies upon lies, I canceled a trip to the beach yesterday because I didn't want to be in the same room with my in-laws. It would not have been pretty.
Medical teams efforts thwarted by lack of government organization
By TESSIE BORDEN
Cox News Service
Monday, September 05, 2005
DALLAS — The volunteer medical team from Georgia showed up ready — almost desperate — to see patients Sunday, and were told they weren't needed.
Again.
After nearly a week spent waiting or driving from city to city chasing victims of Hurricane Katrina, the 31 doctors, nurses and paramedics arrived Sunday at Reunion Arena here expecting to find a shelter full of patients clamoring for care.
What they found instead were medical facilities already in place that were better than anything they could provide.
"They don't need us here," said Cari Spradlin, deputy commander the Georgia-3 Disaster Medical Assistance Team activated after the storm hit the Gulf Coast.
Other volunteer physicians from across the country have poured into the South in week since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, but many are finding roadblocks keeping them from caring for survivors.
A team of 100 surgeons and paramedics from North Carolina in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital is marooned in rural Mississippi.
''The bell was rung, the e-mails were sent off. ... We all got off work and deployed,'' said Dr. Preston Rich, one of the frustrated surgeons from 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,'' Rich said.
Other doctors have complained that their offers of help also were turned away.
A primary care physician from Ohio called and e-mailed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after seeing a notice on the American Medical Association's Web site about volunteer doctors being needed.
An e-mail reply told him to watch CNN that night where U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt was to announce a Web address for doctors to enter their names in a database.
''How crazy is that?'' he complained in an e-mail to his daughter.
The Georgia team deployed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is a convoy with enough supplies, medicines, equipment and food to set up a field hospital.
Since the storm hit Sunday they have gone from a staging area in Alabama to Biloxi, Miss., to Dallas, and have yet to be put to work.
They came to Texas after a call from Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, who was pleading for medical backup as soon as she got word that Katrina evacuees were headed in her direction.
Mary Hudac, spokeswoman for FEMA in Atlanta, said Sunday that the Georgia team and others have been caught in a situation where needs changed.
Either local resources have become available, the need has diminished or some other outside group has arrived such as private groups of doctors and nurses who work outside of the government's coordination, Hudac said.
"We know that the Georgia medical professionals desperately want to contribute. ... There is still tremendous requirement for the resources that the Georgia team brings and we are sure there will be a venue for their expertise," Hudac said.
Georgia Team Commander Judy Edwards had been told by FEMA officials to expect between 10,000 and 14,000 refugees at Reunion Arena that had not seen a doctor, nurse or pharmacist for days.
What she found on Sunday morning was about 300 evacuees at Reunion and about 4,000 evacuees at the nearby Convention Center.
And at the Convention Center, county officials, along with local hospitals, had set up a state-of-the-art medical facility with separate areas for pediatrics and emergency care.
"It was beautiful in there," said Mark Spradlin, who is in charge of logistics and planning for the Georgia team. "If they had shut down and we had moved in, the level of medical care would have gone down."
Late Sunday night, they awaited a FEMA official to come and survey the medical needs situation in Dallas himself, to determine if they should go elsewhere.
It took me since 1985, but I have finally figured out what the Talking Heads As The Days Go BY song was about.....The Evacuation of New Orleans!
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.