jburns wrote:therealashe wrote:I really don't understand why is taking so long to evacuate the sick. Can someone help me understand??
Where do they go? People have the misconception that there are thousands and thousands of available hospital beds in this country. Not even close. A moderate flu season stresses our hospital system and most of those patients aren't even admitted. Any fairly widespread WMD attack on any major US city will make what is going on now seem like the good old days. Remember they are mainly having trouble finding places for those who were already sick when the storm came. After an attack they will also have possibly tens of thousands of additional sick or injured depended on the type of attack.
You have to be prepared to take care of yourself and your family for a fairly extended period of time withot going outside since that will probably not be safe. New Orleans is certainly not the only place where social order can break down.
You got it. But it's not only a matter of "where do they go?" It's also a matter of "who's going to take care of them when they get there." People who don't work in the medical field tend not to truly appreciate how bad the nursing shortage has gotten. At the present time, we are around 1 million nurses short of what we need in this country. The current Gulf Coast problem only further complicates issues. At Vanderbilt University alone, where I work, there are 200 vacant nursing positions.
By the way, 2 military transport planes have already brought patients into Nashville today (I think they had around 50 patients on each plane), and many more patients are arriving at our hospital by other means (private vehicles). They're getting out of New Orleans, but we have to do so in an orderly fashion or the problem in New Orleans will merely spread to other cities.
