Docs Skirt Red Tape to Save Haitian Kids and First Baby Ever Born Aboard USS Bataan

[Kadie]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan. 31, 2010
Docs Skirt Red Tape to Save Haitian Kids
Deu to Military's Suspension of Medevac Flights, 3 Critically Ill Quake Victims Are Flown by Private Jet to U.S.

(AP) Doctors skirted a bureaucratic logjam to save the lives of three critically-ill child victims of Haiti's earthquake on Sunday, flying them to U.S. hospitals on a private jet to avoid a military suspension of medical evacuation flights.

A 5-year-old tetanus victim, a 14-month-old boy critically ill with pneumonia and a baby with third-degree burns were sent to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia by the aid group Partners in Health, based in Boston.

The airlift had been in doubt after the U.S. military stopped medical evacuation flights on Wednesday night because of because of an apparent dispute over where seriously injured patients should be taken for treatment.

"This is a good day. These are three children who would have died if they had stayed here," said Luis Ivers, Partners in Health's clinical director in Haiti. "It's the little successes like that that keep us going here."

Five-year-old Betina Joseph, who developed tetanus from a small cut on her thigh, was in danger of dying if she could not reach a respirator at a U.S. hospital, said Dr. Barth Green, chairman of the University of Miami's Global Institute for Community Health and Development.

"We have 100 critically ill patients who will die in the next day or two if we don't Medevac them," Green said Friday.

more...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/31/world/main6160186.shtml

*****

also,


Medical personnel aboard the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan hold a newborn baby boy under a heat lamp after the child's birth aboard the USS Bataan in Baie De Grand Goave, Haiti January 30, 2010. The child was the first baby ever born aboard Bataan, which is supporting Operation Unified Response following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that caused severe damage in Haiti on January 12, 2010. Picture taken January 30. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Kristopher Wilson/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: DISASTER ENVIRONMENT HEALTH MILITARY) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS


This photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows medical personnel aboard the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan holding a newborn baby after the child was born Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010 in the ship's operating room in Baie de Grand Goave, Haiti. The baby boy was the first baby ever born aboard Bataan. Bataan is supporting Operation Unified Response following the earthquake that caused severe damage in Haiti on Jan. 12.
(AP Photo/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kristopher Wilson, U.S. Navy)

[rox63]

1. Does that give the baby US citizenship, since it was born on a US vessel?

Just wondering...?

[EFerrari]

2. I'm glad the child survived, too.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. How I wish the bureaucracy would get out of the fucking way...

so we can take care of these sick, injured people.

K&R

[SharonAnn]

4. In this case the bureaucracy is (us) the American Taxpayer who doesn't

want to pay the hospitals for the Haitians' medical care.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Unfortunately true...

and wrong, IMHO...