View Full Forums : Patients put down.


Fyyr Lu'Storm
09-13-2005, 02:35 PM
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,16566858-5001022,00.html

Stormhaven
09-13-2005, 02:40 PM
<a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/photography/2005/katrina_video/straydogs.html">Doggies too</a>

Panamah
09-13-2005, 02:59 PM
Very sad. I can't imagine the sort of conflict that must have caused the doctors.

I still find the whole thing of not evacuating that hospital unbelievable. The private hospitals got evacuated, why not the public ones?

Fyyr Lu'Storm
09-13-2005, 03:04 PM
Dogs pack, will become feral, and will attack humans. Especially children.

Stormhaven
09-13-2005, 03:08 PM
Yeah, but if you watch the video and listen, there's a few things that stick out:
A - The National Guard was "evacuating" the dogs three blocks away from where the police were shooting them.
B - I believe they alluded to the fact that it had only been 4 days when the video was shot, but I'm not 100% sure on that point.
C - The people shooting the dogs were calling the dogs to the truck and shooting those. They weren't hunting down dogs that were acting aggressive - the one they showed on camera had a lab-looking dog walk up to the truck and then get shot.

Teaenea
09-13-2005, 03:31 PM
Very sad. I can't imagine the sort of conflict that must have caused the doctors.

I still find the whole thing of not evacuating that hospital unbelievable. The private hospitals got evacuated, why not the public ones?

Because the Mayor didn't order it.

Panamah
09-13-2005, 03:40 PM
The major did order a mandatory evacuation 24 hours before the storm hit. I'm pretty sure I even saw the video footage of it. It should have been sooner.

10AM CDT - Mandatory evacuation is ordered for New Orleans City by Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco[14] after having been requested

Katrina events timeline (http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline)

Or good old Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hurricane_Katrina#Before_landfall

And then, wasn't it like 4 days afterwards the people were left in that hospital?

Teaenea
09-13-2005, 04:08 PM
Then the mayor didn't follow through. It's the mayor's responsibility to not just order, but to coordinate and manage the evacuation. Expecially before the storm hit. It's the same way here in Boston where Mayor "mumbles" Menino is responsible for emergency respons, and accross the country it's the same.

It's also stated in the City's Evacuation plan.
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26


A. Mayor

* Initiate the evacuation.

* Retain overall control of all evacuation procedures via EOC operations.

* Authorize return to evacuated areas.

And one of the organizations he controls is:


B. Office of Emergency Preparedness

* Activate EOC and notify all support agencies to this plan.

* Coordinate with State OEP on elements of evacuation.

* Assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas.

* Assist ESF-8, Health and Medical, in the evacuation of persons with special needs, nursing home, and hospital patients in accordance with established procedures.

* Coordinate the release of all public information through ESF-14, Public Information.

* Use EAS, television, cable and other public broadcast means as needed and in accordance with established procedure.

* Request additional law enforcement/traffic control (State Police, La. National Guard) from State OEP.

On an interesting side note. They Mayor hasn't been back to NO in a week. He packed up his family, purchased a house and enrolled his children in school, all in Dallas Texas.

edit: I said it before and I'll say it again. I just hope that all the FEMA and Bush Bashers aren't so distracted that they fail to see that the Federal response was just one tiny portion of what went wrong.

Fyyr Lu'Storm
09-13-2005, 04:14 PM
He packed up his family, purchased a house and enrolled his children in school, all in Dallas Texas.

Is that a sign that he is stupid or smart?

Frankly, that is what I would do.

We already have refugees coming to our area. Two are now attending UOP.

Panamah
09-13-2005, 04:15 PM
I'm sure that failures happened on all levels but...

Sunday, August 28
LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD REQUESTS 700 BUSES FROM FEMA FOR EVACUATIONS: FEMA sends only 100 buses. [Boston Globe]

The police are staying in NO and living in conditions that are appaling. Did anyone see the jail they made out of the grayhound bus station? Very ingenous! The people running it are staying in the station.

Stormhaven
09-13-2005, 04:18 PM
Just out of sheer curiosity, does FEMA just have 700 buses laying around somewhere?

Teaenea
09-13-2005, 04:27 PM
I'm sure that failures happened on all levels but...

I won't get into the unused busses on DRY LAND in New Orleans but...

How many busses did FEMA have available in total? How many needed to go to other states as well?

That said, I never said the federal response was good enough. But, I think it's important to acknowledge that even if FEMA was perfect the majority of problems would have still happened due to many many many other problems that contributed to the overall problems.

WTF didn't bush issue executive order declaring a national security risk once the levees burst so he could send in the military?
WTF did the Govenor wait so long to authorize the Military to mobilize?
WTF did the Govenor bar the Red Cross from Entering New Orleans the day after the storm? The given excuse is stupid beyond belief!
WTF didn't the Mayor get the hospital's evacuated?
WFT didn't the Mayor utilize the hundreds of unused busses to help evacuate those without cars?

Plenty of blame to go around at all levels.

Panamah
09-13-2005, 04:52 PM
Yup, lots of things to figure out.

I wonder though, there were lots of buses in NO, but who exactly would be driving them?

And it really bugs me they didn't evacuate the folks in the nursing home. :(

Sunglo
09-13-2005, 06:36 PM
I wonder though, there were lots of buses in NO, but who exactly would be driving them?

Yeah, I also heard the lame-ass Mayor of NO spewing this nonsense this last weekend.

I mean WTF - give me 5 minutes and I could figure how to drive a bus all by myself.

Guess the ppl in NO were incapable of figuring out this complicated under taking.

BTW FEMA does not own any buses as it would be moronic for them to.

Anka
09-13-2005, 06:58 PM
Getting drivers when a city is evacuating isn't trivial. It obviously should have been part of the evacuation plan, but the mayor couldn't just walk onto the street and get 100 volunteer drivers.

Panamah
09-13-2005, 07:19 PM
Well, here's more info about the nursing home:


La. Nursing Home Owners Charged in Deaths

By DOUG SIMPSON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 13, 2005; 6:47 PM

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The husband-and-wife owners of a nursing home near New Orleans were charged Tuesday with negligent homicide in the deaths of 34 people during the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina.

The case represents the first major prosecution to come out of the disaster.

Complete Coverage on Hurricane Katrina including video, photos and blogs
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Katrina Photos and Video
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina brought unprecedented destruction to the Gulf Coast. View the Post's multimedia coverage of the disaster. (Robert A. Reeder - The Washington Post)

The owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home in Chalmette "were asked if they wanted to move (the patients). They did not. They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming," Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091301422.html

Teaenea
09-13-2005, 09:44 PM
Well, I thought you said there was a manditory evacuation. Why did they even have a choice?

Sunglo
09-13-2005, 10:56 PM
Getting drivers when a city is evacuating isn't trivial. It obviously should have been part of the evacuation plan, but the mayor couldn't just walk onto the street and get 100 volunteer drivers.

Apparantly it was not obvious to the dumbasses in New Orleans running the local goverment to make sure you had drivers lined up.

And wtf could they not get 100 volunteers failing that? It would take me less time to figure out how to drive the bus than it would to fill it with people.

Keep in mind thier excuses keep evolving, surprised you have not brought up the "where were they going to drive to?"

In case you do, the answer is "to higher ground and away from the coast".

Anka
09-14-2005, 05:34 AM
And wtf could they not get 100 volunteers failing that?

Put it this way, if I was to give you just a megaphone and 100 vehicles scattered about a city would you be able to get a dozen nursing homes evacuated in a few hours? That would need to be with medication and nursing staff. You can't rely on mobile phones. Possibly you could do it all, if you had a team of people helping, but it's not trivial.

And believe it or not, you can't take the patients from a nursing home and just leave them on some high ground somewhere. They do actually need putting into another care establishment with available beds.

Sunglo
09-14-2005, 08:32 AM
Yeah, it's not trivial - thats what evacuation plans are for.

Unfortunately NO either did not have one, or it did not have local leaders capable of executing it.

Yrys
09-14-2005, 08:35 AM
I think I've seen info indicating they had an evacuation plan... they simply didn't / couldn't use it?

Would be interesting to hear more about that.

Sunglo
09-14-2005, 08:42 AM
They did have an evacuation plan, so look at option B

Panamah
09-14-2005, 11:14 AM
Ok, don't know if any of you read the full article but apparently it was pretty criminal. They had a amublance company they had contracted with to evacuate the old folks, they were asked if they needed help by the government, they declined to use the ambulance company and they turned down the help.

There was no need for those 30+ people to die.

Stormhaven
09-14-2005, 11:25 AM
The Washington Times article on the Nursing Home isn't that complete. The <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/13/katrina.nursinghome/index.html">CNN version</a> has a lot more detail as it's specifically about the NH incident.

If you read through the CNN article you find out a few more details -
1 - Before this incident, the Nursing Home had a spotless record
2 - The Owners of the NH stayed with the patients in the home (ie: they didn't just abandon them).
3 - The families of those in the home were contacted and only six people got their family members.
4 - The nursing home didn't want to move some of the patients because they felt that moving them would have been unsafe (special needs patients).
5 - 52 people were rescued alive after the hurricane
6 - "Foti said it was unclear whether all 34 bodies were patients, family members or people who had sought refuge in the home."

B_Delacroix
09-14-2005, 02:27 PM
Dogs pack, will become feral, and will attack humans. Especially children.

I'm going to say something here that may infuriate people. There is no need, to me, to add "especially children".

I see so much "save the children", "its for the children". ALL life is important, not just the children.

I'm done with my minor rant.

The nursing home owners : No matter how this comes out, that home is finished and so are the owners.

Fyyr Lu'Storm
09-14-2005, 03:07 PM
I'm going to say something here that may infuriate people. There is no need, to me, to add "especially children".

Good catch.

/smile

It is a valid and effective persuasive technique.
You can persuade most people with it.

You can convince most people to give up just about any freedom, if you can just show them that it is good for the children. You could probably get away with murder. It will certainly justify popping Rotts in the head.

The technique is used against you every day, and most people do not even see it.

Scirocco
09-14-2005, 03:32 PM
I see so much "save the children", "its for the children". ALL life is important, not just the children.


As someone with children, I have to say that there is a difference. To me, there is a difference between an 80-year old man being killed by an errant shot, and an 8-year old child being hit by the same shot.

While all life is important, some life is more important than others. We may, of course, differ on how you determine that importance.

Anka
09-14-2005, 03:54 PM
The children are a little more important, but it does get to me too when people try to grab your attention by always referring to children. "Today, even while the President is playing golf in Florida, there are orphaned children dying all across .... ". Yuk.

I think the nursing home will be in trouble. It's hard to prove that 34 deaths are all down to bad circumstances when other nursing homes fared much better. I'm sure nice cheques will be on the way for the families who left their relatives in the path of a hurricane (albeit some probably had no choice).

Panamah
09-14-2005, 04:27 PM
From what little I saw of nursing homes during the brief time my Dad was in one, there were a lot of people there that seemed to have no family to care for them. We felt so sorry for the guy in the bed next to my Dad, no one ever visited him.

Iagoe
09-15-2005, 12:04 PM
I wonder if anyone will try to prosecute the doctors for murder?

Panamah
09-15-2005, 12:06 PM
I wouldn't be surprised.

Arienne
09-15-2005, 04:19 PM
From what little I saw of nursing homes during the brief time my Dad was in one, there were a lot of people there that seemed to have no family to care for them. We felt so sorry for the guy in the bed next to my Dad, no one ever visited him.Most of those people have family that's just "too busy" to visit. I suppose a lot have good intentions but the "one of these days" never comes in time. Some family members seem to think that helping financially with nursing care is sufficient to cover their "duty" to an elderly family member. Face it, visiting the elderly is not glamorous, and easy to "put off" for another time... and another... and another.