GentleGiant
Explorer
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Mmmm... red tape, the fall of modern society?
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GentleGiant
Explorer
To sort of add insult to injury, I was watching CNN yesterday while I posted the above. They were doing an interview with a doctor who had traveled to New Orleans to volunteer his medical expertise. He had arrived at the airport where they were bringing in the rescuees and had started helping people out. First of all he said that there were hardly any medical staff on the tarmac itself, an OB-GYN was doing the triage, 60+ ALIVE people were left in the makeshift morgue to die, because they were low priority and "probably wouldn't make it" (actually, some of them were just dehydrated and would have pulled through just fine if they had been given water!). He was also about to treat a weakened woman with diabetes when he was pulled aside by a (non-medical) FEMA employee and told that he had to stop treating people because he didn't have the proper FEMA "authorization" - he was then directed to a higher ranking FEMA official who told him the same thing. Later that day he, and other volunteer medical staff, were finally given some papers to sign and 2 seconds later they now had the required FEMA "authorization." So he went back to the woman he had been treating earlier, wanting to give her insulin he had brought down there himself. Unfortunately, the woman had expired by then...
It boggles the mind to hear that such atrocities and mismanagement can happen in a time of disaster. From an outside perspective, it's horrific to hear such stories when the supposed greatest nation on Earth isn't able to coordinate help for thousands of disaster victims. And not just coordinate, but also refusing volunteers and international help because of obscure rules and regulations.
Standard practice just doesn't cover these kind of situations, so why on Earth should the same standard rules to the situations?
And I'm not even going to go into the whole mess with appointing old buddies, political allies and the like for authoritative positions for which they have no experience... (and please, let that be the only semi-political statement in this thread - if a moderator thinks it has crossed the line, feel free to delete the last paragraph)
It boggles the mind to hear that such atrocities and mismanagement can happen in a time of disaster. From an outside perspective, it's horrific to hear such stories when the supposed greatest nation on Earth isn't able to coordinate help for thousands of disaster victims. And not just coordinate, but also refusing volunteers and international help because of obscure rules and regulations.
Standard practice just doesn't cover these kind of situations, so why on Earth should the same standard rules to the situations?
And I'm not even going to go into the whole mess with appointing old buddies, political allies and the like for authoritative positions for which they have no experience... (and please, let that be the only semi-political statement in this thread - if a moderator thinks it has crossed the line, feel free to delete the last paragraph)
As a person with coworkers in the area, it ticks me off that all the focus is in New Orleans, there are other places effected. 
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