would you accept help from

[Luis G]

Castro?

Cuban President Fidel Castro, calling a "truce" in Havana's ideological enmity with Washington, offered to fly 1,100 doctors to Houston with 26 tonnes of medicine to treat people in the disaster area.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=258588+02-Sep-2005+RTRS&srch=castro


One thing is for sure, cuban medicine is top of the line.

 

[MrBishop]

Wanna bet that as soon as it's over...the USA will 'inherit' 1100 new doctors

 

[unclehobart]

Why is everyone sending 1000's of doctors? We don't need more EMS types. What we need are engineers, concrete, wiring, lumber, hammers, heavy equipment, and 10,000 people that specialize in tearing down and rebuilding.

 

[chcr]

Why is everyone sending 1000's of doctors? We don't need more EMS types. What we need are engineers, concrete, wiring, lumber, hammers, heavy equipment, and 10,000 people that specialize in tearing down and rebuilding.

I beg to differ. Rebuilding is certainly a problem, but the most immediate concern is going to be disease. Water borne illnesses caused by unsanitary conditions. It has started already and will get much worse. Yes, we will need engineers, contractors, etc. but the death toll is going to increase exponentially without some serious and readily available health care. Let's take care of the people first.

 

[unclehobart]

I still think youre putting the cart before the horse. Don't treat the illnesses with top piority. Treat the cause of illness. Get the enigineers and logistic gods in there to get latrines, clean water, and food set up. It will curtail most of the future illnesses. Its a better long term strategy. I'm sure theres enough medical personell on the scene to deal with almost anything shy of thoracic surgery at this point. The place is most likely flooded with antibiotics, insulin, and god knows what else at this point.

 

[Gonz]

Getting the people out alleviates the need for doctors to go in.

 

[chcr]

Getting the people out alleviates the need for doctors to go in.

It would help, but it won't come close to eliminating the need (and it isn't getting done anywhere near fast enough). A lot of those folks are already sick, they just don't know it yet.

I still think youre putting the cart before the horse. Don't treat the illnesses with top piority. Treat the cause of illness. Get the enigineers and logistic gods in there to get latrines, clean water, and food set up.

Unc, for a lot of these people it's already too late for much of that. It was too late when they didn't evacuate before the storm. Again, it's not happening fast enough. I'm not really sure it can. Maybe everyone is doing the very best they can, but it isn't good enough and I've seen littlt if any indication that it's likely to (or even can) get that way. I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I hope that you're right and I'm wrong, but I don't think so. I fear that a year from now we'll look back at this and be able to count the dead in tens of thousands regardless of what gets done.

 

[Luis G]

By the trend of the thread I assume none of you would like to accept help from Castro

 

[Gonz]

Yes Luis, if I were in charge, I'd accept his offer, if it were needed. For the record, we've sent humanitarian relief to Cuba several times. Although, contrary to popular belief, Cuban medicine is standard. Nothing extraordinary.

 

[chcr]

Sorry, Luis. Yes, they've dealt with situations like this before and might have useful knowledge and techniques to add. I'd accept the help if I were in charge. I'll be a little surprixed if the administration does though.

 

[Luis G]

chcr, I'd be surprised too, but I wonder if as far as the situation goes the pride (or whatever reason makes difficult accept help from Cube) would be exceeded by need.

 

[Gonz]

Need? I doubt we need Cuban help. 853,000 doctos in the US no 149

 

[unclehobart]

Again, we have tons of doctors. What we need is transport and supply. It would be nice to have Cuba send up about 20 helicopters and some water purification systems.

I wonder if the US has enough stockpile of the rarified drugs needed to treat the exotic illnesses out to besiege us... malaria, typhiod..

 

[Luis G]

Yeah, and you also have one helluva of an army, yet they were unable to control the situation.

edit:
unc, I think we sent water, helicopters and ships, don't know of which kind.

 

[unclehobart]

Mexican water? NOOOOOOO!

We want the 100% agave anejo Tres Generations Tequila ... a few 1000 liters por favor.

 

[unclehobart]

Yeah, and you also have one helluva of an army, yet they were unable to control the situation.

edit:
unc, I think we sent water, helicopters and ships, don't know of which kind.

Our effective army is 12 time zones away.

The trouble is, in a domestic deployment situation, the affected states have to call for aid first. Everyone gets a 'red card' on this one.

 

[chcr]

The trouble is, in a domestic deployment situation, the affected states have to call for aid first. Everyone gets a 'red card' on this one.

The communications infrastructure collapsed almost immediately. How were they supposed to call. Not that you're wrong, just another thing that was overlooked. The state has to ask, but with no communication (or travel, probably) from the stricken areas, who knew what to ask for. The only people who knew couldn't communicate with the outside in any effective way.

 

[rrfield]

Take help where you can get it. No time for politics.

 

[unclehobart]

The communications infrastructure collapsed almost immediately. How were they supposed to call. Not that you're wrong, just another thing that was overlooked. The state has to ask, but with no communication (or travel, probably) from the stricken areas, who knew what to ask for. The only people who knew couldn't communicate with the outside in any effective way.

Sattelite communications.. sattelite cellphones. God knows the governor and mayor both seemed to have a dozen news crews on them at all times in full communication with the world. All they need have done is looked into one of those cameras and say 'mayday. this is the big one. we need troops and supplies asap.'

I really don't think they thought of it as a wholly screwed situation until the levies started popping. Prior to that, they likely thought it to be a three week cleanup operation.

 

[chcr]

I really don't think they thought of it as a wholly screwed situation until the levies started popping.

Although interestingly, most experts expected it to happen. Another one of those "bad stuff doesn't happen to us" situations.

I know it was all over the news, but from the time it hit until at least twelve hours later, it seemed to me more like they were re-hashing. Our local "on the spot" guy had to drive to Baton Rouge before he could even get a cell signal on Wednesday. I guess he doesn't rate a satellite phone. You are aware that most news reports not in exceedingly remote locations are filed by land-lines or cellular rather than satellite, right?