Security concerns cause doctors to leave hospital, quake victims

Security concerns cause doctors to leave hospital, quake victims

www.cnn.com

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.

The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Ok, so good on CNN to prop up their oh so famous doctor Sanjay Gupta as being a humanitarian, but this is really a problem is it not?

I mean my word you would think that some of these UN guards would lend a hand and at least mount the entries and exits to at least give the idea of a safe zone.

These poor folk who have nothing but to cling to whatever life they have left are being extinguished due to the acts of some.

Understandably it would take time to set up proper places and have security forces at least showing a sign of presence.

Thoughts ATS?

~Keeper

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Those docs are cowards. Gupta stayed with little security & was OK.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable.

"Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there."

Honoré drew parallels between the tragedy in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in Port-au-Prince. But even in the chaos of Katrina, he said, he had never seen medical staff walk away.

"I find this astonishing these doctors left," he said. "People are scared of the poor."

CNN

Lets talk about those so called " cowards " for a while....

As a Belgian myself i'm pretty familiar with our "Be-fast"- team. The team was founded in 2001 it has been in every crisis center in the world . Those dokters are always one of the first on site. To call them cowards because they fear their own life makes me sick. Those ppl have jobs and a life up here and have dropped everything in a blink of a eye to help those people in need. Call my government cowards for failing to provide proper security for my fellow belgians in a region where riots are bound to break out.

And here something else about those "cowards" :

www.diplomatie.be...
So are you still calling them cowards?

What if i told ya they got ordered by the UN to evacuate to the Airport...

[edit on 17-1-2010 by Spartannic]

Wow.. I was sure that I posted on this thread..

Anyways- Agreed that CNN is propping up Sanja Gupta.

It's like the other article where CNN said he stayed behind to work with patients and the United Nations denied he stayed behind.

Notice the article is from CNN as well?

It's all about the ratings. Surely there are more doctors there than Sanja Gupta doing everything they can and taking no credit for it. Those are the real heroes.

Cowardice has nothing to do with it, it’s all about politics.

Those good doctors and you and I may very well in fact want to do everything possible to help Haiti but I can assure behind the scenes politically a few organizations and government’s are vying for both control, and leverage over the Haitian leadership and working a master plan to do so where a lot of Haitians are absolutely going to die in that process.

Haiti’s history is very closely entwined with U.S. History in some very dark, shameful and sinister ways.

Announcing emergency help for Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, President Barack Obama noted America’s historic ties to the impoverished Caribbean nation, but few Americans understand how important Haiti’s contribution to U.S. history was.

In modern times, when Haiti does intrude on U.S. consciousness, it’s usually because of some natural disaster or a violent political upheaval, and the U.S. response is often paternalistic, if not tinged with a racist disdain for the country’s predominantly black population and its seemingly endless failure to escape cycles of crushing poverty.

However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

Altnet.org

This article on Haiti is an absolute must read for anyone who truly wants to begin to understand the complexities of Haiti and it's relationship with the United States.