Health Care Workers Tell Bloomberg: We’re Not Meeting Sandy Survivors’ Health Needs

[Omaha Steve]

Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report
National Edition
Produced by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash
*****************
Health Care Workers Tell Bloomberg:
We’re Not Meeting Sandy Survivors’ Health Needs

Members of the NYS Nurses Association, NY Physicians for a National
Health Program, DC 37, Local 436 of the United Federation of Nurses
and Epidemiologists, and other health care organizations, along with
Occupy Wall Street demonstrated at City Hall protesting that thousands
of New Yorkers who are homeless, or trapped in their homes without
power, without elevator service, and heat and hot water are experiencing
a health emergency. The healthcare responders recounted their
experiences and articulated the medical services needed for the
hurricane’s victims in Staten Island, the Rockaways, Coney Island, and
Red Hook. They also emphasized the need to expedite reopening local
clinics and Coney Island and Bellevue Hospitals to provide care for their
communities.

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[graham4anything]

1. They should be protesting Andrew Cuomo in Albany. This is the responsiblity of the Governor of NY

Andrew Cuomo has done a horrible job compared to NJ and Prsident Obama.

The state provides the funding for the city. Is Andrew warm in Albany?

[Igel]

2. Disaster relief is usually bottom up.

Those nearer the bottom have more of a clue, one supposes.

So during Ike Houston coordinated pretty much everything and supplied requests. Perry/Texas cooperated, and if they couldn't provide something then the request was kicked upstairs to FEMA or Houston talked to FEMA directly after getting a "no" from the state.

That was everything from how much ice to deliver, hours of operation of relief centers, where they'd be set up; where to concentrate electrical crews, where to have health services, etc., etc.

Usually when FEMA and Texas were caught off guard it's because of something that wasn't in the original emergency plan. Or the revised one. In the case of Ike, nobody assumed power would be out for so long and that so much ice would be needed. That was White's administration's snafu.

When you see things going badly on the ground, it's either because the locals have screwed up or the disaster was so bad that the Feds are in charge. The Feds usually rely on emergency plans several years old, possibly incomplete, and they lack any direct knowledge of the area in question.