Results 1 to 13 of 13

Thread: "People Are Going To Start Dying" - Puerto Rico's Battered Hospitals On Verge Of Failure

  1. #1

    "People Are Going To Start Dying" - Puerto Rico's Battered Hospitals On Verge Of Failure

    A week after then-category 4 Hurricane Maria made landfall in densely populated eastern Puerto Rico, electricity remains offline across most of the island, while supplies of staples like gas, food and water are dwindling. Shelters on the island are reportedly running low on food, and the government managers of the emergency response effort are scrambling to evacuate 70,000 people from a river valley that’s in danger of being completely submerged after a nearby dam failed.
    And now, Reuters is reporting that hospitals across the island are struggling to continue providing medical services to patients after the storm left many of them flooded, strewn with rubble or relying on diesel-powered generators that will soon run out of fuel. For some, the only option is to evacuate to the United States for treatment.

    Among these patients is a baby with a heart defect who had the misfortune of being born just before Maria hit.
    “Among them is Cheira Ruiz and her baby girl Gabriellyz, who was born two weeks ago with a serious heart defect. The newborn was admitted to the Centro Cardiovascular de Puerto Rico in the capital shortly before Maria slammed into the island last Wednesday, but it was impossible for doctors to operate in such precarious conditions.”

    Gabriellyz was among the first infants cleared to take a medical flight out of Puerto Rico since the storm. Her parents, who live two hours south of the capital, found out the good news Friday when emergency officials knocked on their door in the town of Guanica and told them to pack for the trip to Miami. With phone service out, the doctors had called one of the island’s radio stations, which broadcast their plea for help in locating the couple.

    Hours before the flight was scheduled to depart, the parents learned there was only room for one of them. Mother and baby would fly alone to Miami.

    “I’m trying to be strong,” Ruiz said on Saturday.”
    Across the island, the scene is nightmarish as motorists and pedestrians line up for blocks waiting to purchase scare resources like fuel to power the generators. Cellular service, internet, and email have vanished, and radio has become a primary source of information. In what sounds like a plot detail from the Mad Max movies, fuel is in such short supply on the island that deliveries to hospitals are made by armed guards to fend off looters. Hospitals trying to transfer critical patients are being turned down by other facilities, simply because there is no room, or they can’t afford to purchase fuel.
    For hospitals across this region, the challenges are mounting. After the power went out, back-up generators at some hospitals failed quickly. Other hospitals are running critically low on diesel. Fuel is so precious that deliveries are made by armed guards to prevent looting, according to Dr. Ivan Gonzalez Cancel, a cardiovascular surgeon and director of the heart transplant program at Centro Cardiovascular.

    “Another hospital wants to transfer two critical patients here because they don’t have electricity,” Gonzalez Cancel said. “We can’t take them. We have the same problem.”
    Another problem is that nurses and doctors are running low on gasoline for their daily commutes to work. Puerto Ricans are waiting as long as seven hours at the island’s few functioning filling stations. Marilyn Rivera Morales, a nurse at a hospital cardiovascular center run by Dr. Ivan Gonzalez Cancel who spoke with Reuters, said she had enough gas left to drive to the hospital for two more days.
    “How will they keep coming here if they don’t have gas?” Gonzalez Cancel wondered.
    Gonzalez’s cardiovascular center was “in shambles,” he told Reuters. Running without air conditioning, the walls of the operating room were dripping with condensation and floors were slippery. Most patients had been discharged or evacuated to other facilities, but some patients remained because their families could not be reached by phone. On the sidewalk outside the cardiac center on Saturday, Jorge Rivera and his wife Dorca approached Gonzalez Cancel to ask about the woman’s father, a patient still inside waiting for triple-bypass surgery. The couple are residents of Savannah, Georgia who were in Puerto Rico to care for their loved one.
    The Doctor responded with what we imagine was unwelcome news: They’d have better luck if they took Dorca’s father elsewhere.
    With the hospital scaling down operations and the island’s infrastructure on its knees, Gonzalez Cancel estimated he would not perform another open heart surgery for a month or more. His advice to the couple: leave.

    “I am talking to you, not as a physician, I am talking to you as a human being,” he said. “Get him on a plane. You can be in Miami in two and a half hours.”
    But of course, even leaving the island is a process fraught with difficulty.




    More at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...-verge-failure
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2
    There is nothing much left in Puerto Rico. I can't imagine.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  4. #3
    "No one can talk to each other, not even rescuers. So we're out here on our own looking to help people." #PuertoRicoStrong #Maria



    The fallacy of depending on cell phones for emergency comms.

    "A few ham radio operators would string wires up in broken trees,
    and have a comms network up and running in a couple of hours using kid-powered bicycle generators.
    But, they don't encourage kids to learn that stuff anymore."

  5. #4
    We need to immediately send trillions of dollars to rebuild, unless of course, you just want PEOPLE TO DIE!!!

    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  6. #5
    Puerto Rico is a major producer of phamaceuticals- one quarter of US drug exports are produced there and it was responsible for 72% of Puerto Rico's exports (due to tax breaks).

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...ico/692752001/

    Hurricane Maria halts crucial drug manufacturing in Puerto Rico, may spur shortages

    Puerto Rico's pharmaceutical industry came to a halt after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Drug companies ranging from Eli Lilly to AstraZeneca rushed to assess damage and braced for the possibility of months of downtime.

    The catastrophic storm, which wiped out electricity for the entire island, raises the prospect of short-term drug shortages if the industry can't quickly and temporarily shift manufacturing capacity off the U.S. territory.

    Many, if not all, of the nearly 50 pharmaceutical plants on the island are effectively idled. Power isn't likely to be restored to the island for three to six months.

    Although most factories run by global pharmaceutical companies have backup power generation, many employees are unavailable to help resume manufacturing because they face calamity in their personal lives.

    "Companies are looking at what their production plans will be and what redundancies are in place," said Nicolette Louissaint, president of Healthcare Ready, a non-profit group that addresses emergency supply chain crises during the hurricane season. "They're beginning to look at how to best ensure there’s continuity of operations."

    Pharmaceuticals represented 72% of Puerto Rico's 2016 exports, valued at $14.5 billion, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    The sector accounted for 25% of total U.S. pharmaceutical exports.

    The Food and Drug Administration had no immediate comment on whether any drug shortages could occur.

    But Jennifer Dooren, FDA's acting deputy director of operations, said the agency coordinated with pharmaceutical companies before the storm "to evaluate the potential."

    "In the aftermath of the storm, we continue to work closely with pharmaceutical companies with manufacturing facilities located in Puerto Rico to prevent shortages of medically necessary drug products," she said in an email.

    The phone line at the Pharmaceutical Industry Association of Puerto Rico was not working Friday, and the organization's president could not be reached for comment.

    The island's pharmaceutical sector was in a slow decline after it lost federal tax benefits that were officially phased out in 2006.

  7. #6
    Puerto Rico Could Face 6 Months Without Power

    http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Puerto-Rico-Could-Face-6-Months-Without-Power.html
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  8. #7
    FDNY and other departments have been trickling in:
    https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/2...ia-relief.html

  9. #8
    Puerto Rico In Chaos As Cash Runs Out

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-28/bill-dudley-rescue-new-york-fed-says-puerto-rico-has-plenty-hand
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



  10. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    We need to immediately send trillions of dollars to rebuild, unless of course, you just want PEOPLE TO DIE!!!

    Surely can cut a trillion dollars of military spending and put a few billion of it for disaster relief... you know, one of the few ways the feds spend money that really shouldn't be controversial?

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Influenza View Post
    Surely can cut a trillion dollars of military spending and put a few billion of it for disaster relief... you know, one of the few ways the feds spend money that really shouldn't be controversial?
    DoD would just say they've wired it to Tel Aviv misplaced it.

  13. #11
    U.S. Army Takes Over Massive Mission to Save Puerto Rico

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/us-army-takes-over-massive-mission-to-save-puerto-rico
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  14. #12
    Ack! Double post.

    XNN
    Last edited by XNavyNuke; 11-05-2018 at 06:54 PM.
    "They sell us the president the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars. They sell us every thing from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars. I want to know who the men in the shadows are. I want to hear somebody asking them why. They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but theyre never the ones to fight or to die." - Jackson Browne Lives In The Balance

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Puerto Rico Could Face 6 Months Without Power

    http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Puerto-Rico-Could-Face-6-Months-Without-Power.html
    I know that you opened a dedicated thread, but I think this story on (lack) of media coverage is more appropriate here. Some territories are more important than others, especially those with a Republican governor. The damage to the islands grid here is more extensive than the PR.

    .The super typhoon American media forgot

    Despite the widespread destruction, not a single national news crew was on the ground to document it. Adriana Cotero, a newscaster in Saipan, has been shocked by the absence of mainland journalists—especially now, as a humanitarian crisis is unfolding: tens of thousands of people are expected to go months without electricity in the islands’ unforgiving heat.
    XNN
    "They sell us the president the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars. They sell us every thing from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars. I want to know who the men in the shadows are. I want to hear somebody asking them why. They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but theyre never the ones to fight or to die." - Jackson Browne Lives In The Balance



Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 13
    Last Post: 08-19-2014, 09:01 PM
  2. Replies: 27
    Last Post: 03-20-2012, 09:00 AM
  3. Replies: 1
    Last Post: 02-11-2011, 01:28 AM
  4. I just got a "RonPaul Revolution" stamped 1 dollar bill in Puerto Rico.
    By aGameOfThrones in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 33
    Last Post: 09-20-2010, 10:07 AM
  5. Should people born in Puerto Rico decide on U.S. citizen Status?
    By aGameOfThrones in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 14
    Last Post: 08-28-2010, 08:50 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •