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U.S. Suspends Haitian Airlift in Cost Dispute
MIAMI - The United States has suspended its medical evacuations of critically injured Haitian earthquake victims until a dispute over who will pay for their care is settled, military officials said Friday.
The military flights, usually C-130s carrying Haitians with spinal cord injuries, burns and other serious wounds, ended on Wednesday after Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida formally asked the federal government to shoulder some of the cost of the care.
Hospitals in Florida have treated more than 500 earthquake victims so far, the military said, including an infant who was pulled out of the rubble with a fractured skull and ribs. Other states have taken patients, too, and those flights have been suspended as well, the officials said.
The suspension could be catastrophic for patients, said Dr. Barth A. Green, the co-founder of Project Medishare for Haiti, a nonprofit group affiliated with the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine that had been evacuating about two dozen patients a day.
"People are dying in Haiti because they can't get out," Dr. Green said.
It was not clear on Friday who exactly was responsible for the interruption of flights, or the chain of events that led to the decision. Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Mr. Crist, said the governor's request for federal help might have caused "confusion."
"Florida stands ready to assist our neighbors in Haiti, but we need a plan of action and reimbursement for the care we are providing," Mr. Ivey said.
Mr. Crist's request did not indicate how much the medical care was costing the State of Florida, but the number and complexity of the cases could put the total in the millions of dollars. The expenditure comes at a time when the state is suffering economically and Mr. Crist, a Republican, is locked in a tough primary battle for the Senate seat that had been held by Mel Martinez.
"Recently, we learned that plans were under way to move between 30 to 50 critically ill patients a day for an indefinite period of time," Mr. Crist wrote in a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services. "Florida does not have the capacity to support such an operation."
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the decision to suspend the flights was made by the military, not the federal health department. A military spokesman said that the military had ended the flights because hospitals were becoming unwilling to take patients.
"The places they were being taken, without being specific, were not willing to continue to receive those patients without a different arrangement being worked out by the government to pay for the care," said Maj. James Lowe, the deputy chief of public affairs for the United States Transportation Command.
Florida officials, meanwhile, said the state's hospitals had not refused to take more patients. Jeanne Eckes-Roper, the health and medical chairwoman of the domestic security task force for the South Florida region - where the Super Bowl will be played on Feb. 7 - said she had requested only that new patients be taken to other areas of the state, like Tampa.
The Health and Human Services spokeswoman, Gretchen Michael, who works for the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, said the agency was reviewing Mr. Crist's request for financial assistance. The request would involve activating the National Disaster Medical System, which is usually used in domestic disasters and which pays for victims' care.
Some of the patients being airlifted from Haiti are American citizens and some are insured or eligible for insurance. But Haitians who are not legal residents of the United States can qualify for Medicaid only if they are given so-called humanitarian parole - in which someone is allowed into the United States temporarily because of an emergency - by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Only 34 people have been given humanitarian parole for medical reasons, said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. The National Disaster Medical System, if activated, would cover the costs of caring for patients regardless of their legal status.
Some hospitals have made their own arrangements to accommodate victims of the earthquake, which occurred on Jan. 12. Jackson Health System, the public hospital system in Miami, treated 117 patients, 6 of whom were still in critical condition, said Jennifer Piedra, a spokeswoman. The system has established the Haiti's Children Fund to cover the costs of treating pediatric earthquake victims.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, Haitian medical facilities were quickly overwhelmed. Since then, medical help has come in the form of mobile hospitals and other aid. Major Lowe said that as medical care had become available in Haiti, the need for the flights had declined significantly. But Dr. Green and nonprofit groups with a presence in Haiti said the need for evacuations remained dire.
"Right now we have in the queue dozens of paraplegics, burn victims and other patients that need to be evacuated," Dr. Green said. "And other facilities are asking us to coordinate the evacuation of their patients."
A spokeswoman for Partners in Health, a Boston charity with doctors and nurses in Haiti, said the group had a backlog of patients, many with head, spine or pelvic injuries, who needed surgery that could not be performed there.
Major Lowe said patients could still be evacuated in private planes, but Dr. Green said medically equipped planes were very expensive and generally could carry only one or two patients.
Federal officials could not provide the total number of earthquake patients airlifted to the United States, but Florida seemed to have received the bulk of them.
In his letter, Mr. Crist outlined his state's efforts to support the rescue effort, helping both the healthy and the sick streaming into the state. "Florida's health care system is quickly reaching saturation," he wrote.
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61 Comments so far
Show AllWow.
I guess Obama's healthcare plan really will be universal... in needless suffering.
Doesn't it warm the cockles of your heart to know that the US is more concerned about who is going to end up footing the bill, instead of how many people they can actually help?
THE WARS CONTINUE?
Make the stinkin banks pay for it.
Makes you proud to be a U.S. citizen, doesn't it?
But I know we have to spend our money on wars, and on aid to Israel ($5 million every day) and Egypt (to be Israel's accomplice).
Since I keep hearing radio ads from the American Red Cross begging for money for Haiti, I'm wondering where the money donated to them is going. By last Wednesday, they had raised $165 million, and more was coming in. You'd think that would pay for at least some medical care for the Haitians. But I know they have to pay their executives, too.
It has been reported in the AP and other sources that for every US dollar you donate to a US funded aid group for Haitian relief, 0.33 cents goes to support the US military occupation in Haiti. I will never donate to the American Red Cross since they have a long history of corruption. Donations should go instead to Doctors without Borders.
Jeevee
Be very careful to whom you donate. After 9/11, the ARC was in a deep scandal from burning MANY blood donations!
Fire twelve less missiles into homes in Pakistan. Problem solved.
Most of them are probably Haitians who voted the wrong way -- Lavalas supporters -- so it's OK for them to die (as seems to be the current policy as for delivering or blocking aid). It's like how the the Gazans voted the wrong way, so it's OK to commit genocide on them. You can't be a great empire by coddling your enemies (the poor people foolish enough to want real democracy) after all...
Only in America.
I feel sorry for you with the mercenary and inhuman healthcare system that you suffer in the USA, but right now I feel more sorrow for the Haitians.
I think I will make another donation, this time to Doctors without Borders. If US flights are being suspended perhaps some of theirs will be allowed through.
(Just made the donation; I hope that it goes towards relief and not to paying multi-million dollar per year execs)
Can we raise money to medevac them to Cuba? (Or, hell, even ship them via boat- it's a quick hop across the Windward Passage.) Haiti is a short distance from Cuba, whose healthcare system is among the best and most efficient in the world. They could handle those patients. And are humane enough to be willing to, as well.
Actually, Cuba's healthcare system is outstanding, with excellent healthcare outcomes despite the fact that Cuba is a poor country. Maybe you should look at the statistics:
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cuba_statistics.html
http://www.who.int/countries/cub/en/
Not only does Cuba provide universal single payer healthcare for all of its citizens, but Cuba also has an excellent system of free medical education that trains huge numbers of doctors who then go and serve poor populations all over the world, including Haiti.
“If you don’t know history, it's like you were born yesterday.”
Howard Zinn
UNICEF and the WHO--Government propaganda?
Now I KNOW you're just trying to be funny!
And Howard Zinn WAS right: “If you don’t know history, it's like you were born yesterday.”
f you very much
"Don't be so naive..."
Yes please do, for Cuba has free healthcare for all,
surely we should be so lucky, such a social democracy.
Maybe you're just trying to be funny?
Cuba is a very poor country, thanks in great part to the continuing U.S. blockade. Why would they want thousands (or even hundreds!) of people from the U.S., many of whom could very well turn out to be spies or saboteurs? Considering the history of U.S. and Cuba, it is obvious that the LAST thing the people of Cuba would want would be immigration from the U.S.
“If you don’t know history, it's like you were born yesterday.”
Howard Zinn
There is a google search engine feature on your computer; you should use it.
The U.S. blockade of Cuba remains in effect, and that's why the U.N. General Assembly votes overwhelmingly every year to condemn it as a violation of international law. (Voting against the resolution are the U.S., Palau, and Israel.) The blockade is intended to destroy the Cuban economy, and thus to weaken the Cuban government. Since non-U.S. companies who trade with Cuba are subject to U.S. sanctions, it is not true that "except for the U.S., anyone can trade freely with Cuba."
For example, the U.S. imposes a six-months ban to enter U.S. harbours of all ships that had anchored in a Cuban port, and imposes sanctions against firms doing commerce with Cuba even through under the jurisdiction of a third state.
Since the major U.S. pharmaceutical companies have merged with international companies, even life-saving drugs (as well as medical equipment) are blocked from Cuba.
The U.S. even blocks Cuba from acquiring scientific and medical information, through restrictions on travel of U.S. researchers, the disrespect of bilateral agreements on Cuban researcher’s visas, refusal to grant software licenses or to satisfy the orders from Cuban libraries of books, magazines, diskettes or CD-Rom of specialized scientific literature, etc.), which is an extension of the embargo to areas formally excluded from it by the U.S. law.
Cuba is a small, poor country, and the U.S. has been trying to strangle it for decades. Nevertheless, thanks to their egalitarian system of government, everyone has enough to eat, free medical care, and free education through graduate or professional school. Imagine what they could achieve if the world's biggest bully weren't trying to crush them!
There's a lot more to the criminal U.S. blockade of Cuba; google it.
'"Cuba, whose healthcare system is among the best and most efficient in the world".'
"Don't be so naive..."
Naive? A worldwide indicator of overall health care is infant mortality. Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate (5.82) than the US (6.26). http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=29
Time to change color, chameleon.
If I'm wrong, I'm in good company:
"After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system. But since 1992 the number of unmet medical needs patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical procedures without adequate equipment-has sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact that in 1992 the U.S. trade embargo-one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.
"A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive health care to all of its citizens. Cuba still has an infant mortality rate half that of the city of Washington, D.C.. Even so, the U.S. embargo of food and the de facto embargo on medical supplies has wreaked havoc with the island's model primary health care system."
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html
Cuba vs. rest of the world:
Rank Countries surveyed Statistic Date of Information
125 167 HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate 0.10% 2003 est.
162 175 Fertility rate 1.66 (children/woman) 2006.
153 224 Birth rate 11.89 (births/1,000 population) 2006 est.
168 226 Infant mortality rate 6.04 (deaths/1,000 live births) 2006.
129 224 Death rate 6.33 (deaths/1,000 population) 2005.
37 225 Life expectancy at birth 77.23 (years) 2006. est
17 99 Suicide rate 18.3 per 100,000 people per year 1996.*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba
"U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says"
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cuba_statistics.html
You imply that Cuba is using a trick to decrease its reported infant mortality rate.
But the WHO Infant mortality rate uses neonatal deaths, which account for a large proportion of child deaths. Mortality during neonatal period is considered a good indicator of both maternal and newborn health and care. The figure used is the number of deaths during the first 28 days of life per 1,000 live births in a given year or period.
UNICEF bases its infant mortality rate on the number of deaths per 1,000 live births during the first YEAR of life.
It would be great if you'd support your claims with some citations. Do you have a source for your claim that Cuba is not reporting neonatal deaths occurring before one week of life? You seem to be using disinformation techniques--make an unsubstantiated claim, and then move quickly on when challenged, never providing any sources for your claims.
No one said, for example, that the US is the "only country where 8th graders can't read properly." Maybe you are thinking that a country's literacy rate is based on how well 8th graders read. But it's not.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines a literate person as someone who can both read and write, with understanding, a short, simple statement on his or her everyday life.
This is a very low standard for literacy, and the statistics are based on the percentage of citizens 15 years and older who can meet this very low standard. Cuba's literacy rate approaches 100%, because of their commitment to education. The U.S. doesn't do as well, but then we have very different priorities, as demonstrated by our low rankings on so many indicators.
Strange that Americans can come up with millions of dollars to help out Haiti but can't find a dime to help their own people.
Considering the contemptible barbarism with which we've treated the Haitian people for so long, sending these injured Haitians to Florida is, almost quite literally, the least we could do. This country is evil and mad with greed.
I am so proud to be an American.
Whatever solution will be found to this latest atrocity, I'm certain that some enterprising Amerikan Elected Misrepresentative is even now taking steps to ensure that no Haitian women will receive "reproductive services" at US taxpayers' expense under the pretext of being an earthquake victim!
And then they'll shift into high gear and make a bipartisan commitment to exclude any and all Haitian earthquake victims from coverage in the pending No Insurer Left Behind bailout!
First things first!
· Yr Obd't Servant
People wanting to donate and make sure it goes to the Haitians can go to http://www.haitiaction.net/ and give to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund.
Puerto Rico is less than half the distance of Miami.
It has well over 10,000 hospital beds and doctors who are trained in tropical medicine.
Most of the healthcare in Puerto Rico is paid through Medicaid and other US funded programs. Obama could pay out part of his aid "promise" through a US Gvt funded system.
Unfortunately, many Floridians consider Haitians low class ex-slaves. They are not the white Coca Cola Cubans who bought their way out of Cuba in the 60s.
One of the primary goals of the military occupation is to keep Haitians out of the US.
Also note: retailers in the U.S. are not expected to hold empty shelves while the Haitian garment industry recovers but will contract elsewhere- that's business. Presumably they will be able to out-source labor which gets paid even less than the $5 a day workers get in Haiti in order to compensate for larger transport costs.
$5 a day is the minimum wage President Aristide established in Haiti, but after our 2004 CIA coup dictatorship took over it went back down to $.20 an hour.
Naturally, profit must be made from every human tragedy. That's what makes us Americans--so enterprising you know.
Money wins out over humanitarian aid. Those people in Haiti should just whip out their Blue Cross Blue Shield fuck you to death insurance cards.
If this this doesn't make you want to cut the nuts off an insurance company CEO and our politicians nothing will. What a pathetic greedy money grubbing act.
Wondering when the bankers are gonna demand a ban on burials for our loved ones so they can turn them into fertilizer. There are massive profits to be made, and next to nothing in overhead.
In the movie "Solvent Green," they predicted our capitalist government would turn it into something more edible then fertilizer.
The intent of Empire USA is a genocide by starvation, dehydration and no medical help. And so, less then 10% of earthquake survivors have received so much as a drop of water.
Comes now a most perfect excuse to waste the men of Haiti, give only the women food and shoot dead any man who tries to get some of it.
“The World Food Program [WFP] on Saturday said it had started its first systematic food distribution system, establishing 16 sites in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where only women can collect food.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/2010130151159289107.html
This is horrifying. And they will brand any men trying to feed themselves or their families as looters, deserving to be shot. The response to this tragedy is on par with that after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, I read today that they're trying to unload the toxic trailers on the people of Haiti too and call it humanitarian aid.
If this is true about offering food only to women, the intent couldn't be more obvious: Wipe out all the men and there goes the popular resistance to foreign occupation, leaving only "docile" women to work in the sweatshops, good for Empire USA, bad for Haiti. Except it won't work because naturally Haitian women will share the food with their families. But even if Empire actually does go ahead with this grotesque attempt at genocide by starving Haitian men to death, the more than two century old slave revolt is sure to continue - Until the last chain is broken!
John. The women only reason was that the are less violent & cause less trouble in the line-ups. Ron.
Had not the C.I.A. kidnapped Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, there'd be a populist government in Haiti that's of, for and by the proud descendents of African slaves, rather than of, for and by the U.S.A. in cahoots with a lighter-skinned self-serving elite one percent of the population which has always looked down upon their African heritage. Not that casualties wouldn't have been enormous, even with a legitimate instead of a Puppet government, but they would have been greatly reduced, because an Aristide (or his sucessor's) government would have requested and received Cuban health care and emergency relief workers by the thousands, and no nation has been more successful than Cuba in minimizing casualties from natural catastrophes (especially hurricanes). And even more crucial, a populist government would have been able to tap into Haiti's greatest attribute, namely, the collective will of its people, the very same attribute which two centuries ago enabled African slaves to defeat Napoleon's best and finest. What would have happened had President Aristide not been kidnapped is that, in coordination with international relief efforts, the entire nation would have organized itself into emergency relief brigades, with water and food made available to the public within 24 hours, crush victims more quickly evacuated, triaged and cared for. Indeed so many people who otherwise are going to die, given the chaotic conditions yet existing in Haiti, still could be saved if only President Aristide were allowed to return; which is what progressives should be demanding of the Obama administration. Yes, donations to charitable organizations do help, but there's no doubt that Haitians, given whatever help that they may request, are more than capable of lifting themselve up by their own bootstraps, and can do it best and quickest. To think otherwise is rascist, clear and simple.
"enabled African slaves to defeat Napoleon's best and finest."
It was the troops of the French republican government in power after the French Revolution that were run out of Saint-Domingue with help from England and Spain. Toussaint later allied with the French to expel Spain and England. Napoleon later sent the largest French fleet ever assembled to Haiti in 1802 to try to reinstall slavery. Toussaint signed a peace treaty with the French to end hostilities and was later arrested and sent to France to die shortly after in prison. "Napoleon's best and finest" were not really defeated by the Haitians. Yellow fever and the English did as much as the Haitians to send France packing in 1803. Napoleon's disinterest in the western hemisphere contributed too. He had his mind on Europe. Slavery may have ended in name but not necessarily in practice. Haiti later agreed to pay reparations to France. Who defeated who? Haiti's been under the yoke of one oppressor or another throughout most of it's history. I can't say Haiti ever defeated anyone but they sure as hell have fought.
I agree with most of what you wrote but I thought that quote was slightly in error. I also think there willingness and ability to fight for independence has played a big part in their present poverty and ill treatment by the US and western Europe.
I have an idea. Let's take a CEO whose has gotten $33,000,000 of our tax money in the bank scam payoff, drop a building on his head, and that will free up $33,000,000 to help real people. Repeat as often as necessary.
This travesty comes on the day that Bill Gates makes a big deal out of the multi-billion dollar plan of his and Melinda's Foundation to provide vaccinations to save the lives of countless children around the world. If even 1/1000 of this money could be diverted to medical treatment for injured Haitians, there would be funding enough to cover same for all the injured. How about it, B & M? (Oh, I forgot, there would be no bonanza of profit for any corporations selling vaccines in the Haiti operation.)
This is the last straw. I'm leaving this dreadful country. I'm not kidding.
Where are you going? I want to emigrate myself but I don't have any idea where to go.
Figure out where you can be a useful person. Vietnam is working out pretty well for me. www.steadyfootsteps.org
We are the worst
Fortunately for Haitians Cuban doctors are there to proved free care as are not-for profit physician organizations from the US and other countries. The stopping of medical care over money is typically American and affects us all daily.
True.
The disease of greed kills more people than all the others combined.
Maybe sometime in the near future Howard Zinn view of History will be taught world wide.
Here is one more quote by Howard Zinn to help raise the expectation that less people will not have been born yesterday. Hum!
"What we choose to emphasis in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only see the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.
If we remember those times and places where people have behaved magnificently, it energizes us to act, and raises the possibility of sending this world in a different direction"
Wow in spite of the death, blood greed and hate, this inspired man continues to speak truth to Power! God bless you Howard Zinn!
And may many many more have your sense of history and compelling compassion.
Isn't capitalism great?
Why can't some of the millions/billions that have been donated be used, ESPICIALLY by Red Cross? Oh, yeah, I forgot...most of RC money goes for administration costs. can't forget the fatcats in this "Disaster Capitalism"
The US Government suspends evacuation of Haitians needing help because the GOP governor in Florida says he and his state can't afford to do the job that needs to be done and the Democratic president stands there like a jack ass going along with this garbage. What the hell kind of non sense is this?
Two Republican parties is two too many, Barakus Obombus, Mr Bipartisan fulll of horse hockey, NO We Can't Not Right Now IF It's Really Humanitarian Intervention.
Hey how about you get the hell out of the way and Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Lulu, the other real statesmen and women of Latin America and those in the EU and else where can get the job done? If the US Government has money and help for the power elites here and abroad, what the hell kind of society have we become?
We"ve got money our government tells us for the Pentagon, for Blackwater, for the big banking and brokerage houses, for coups in Haiti and who the hell knows where else for the benefit of these same power elites at the top in these lands but damn we just don't can spare a dime for real needs of real people because we had to give all to these who are wrecking us and the rest of all civilization. Gee, "isn't that just great"? Where's the hope and the change we can believe in? Oh, I should know. Wall Street, the Pentagon, and other assorted criminals already have it, with our "wonderful" congress and president handing it to them on a silver platter. Oh, "Just look at the wonders of such enlightened statecraft." Can it get any worse than this? Mr Change We Can Believe In, we want our change you turned over to the bank robbers on Wall Street and else where back.
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