PUERTO RICO PART II – MEDICAL ISSUES

By Faye Higbee – Oct 28, 2017 – Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

Puerto Rico is struggling under a desperate need for medical help, that in some cases is not happening. We spoke with a disaster relief worker who explained some of the issues that are creating havoc…they were described to us as “humanitarian crimes.”

The fight to get medical care  

An example: a veteran and his son – who had serious medical issues – were in area that had flooding and no communication.  Relief workers were trying to find a way to help the son, and it became extremely difficult. The son was so sick he could not communicate.

“He was wasting away in front of my eyes.”

They did manage to get 2 doctors out to him, but they advised the the relief workers that there was “no way” the man would get better in that environment. Hence, evacuation was necessary.

They got an ambulance to take him to a field hospital, where they hoped he could get assistance to allow him intake on the USNS Comfort. (Patients must have the approval of a hospital and proper paperwork to board the hospital ship). Aid workers were able to finally get him that approval.

By then the man had spent several hours in an ambulance. Officials directed him to a MASH unit that was only open from 9 a.m.- 9 p.m. – by the time he got there they were closed.

Members of the military volunteered to watch him overnight.  When morning came, the process did not work as originally communicated, and the intake to the USNS Comfort was cancelled.

Amateur civilian ham radio operators had created a network of communication between hospitals for about 3 weeks. By this time, they had left, which made a difficult situation even worse.

Relief workers have involved a variety of  federal agencies, NGOs,and legislators to work on this case. Disaster relief flights are difficult to obtain, in part because they are expensive. His situation is not totally resolved as of this writing. The man has been to no less than 5 hospitals, only the last of which has made a solid effort to help him – they are thoroughly overwhelmed. But he still needs to be taken to a hospital on the mainland, which is something the relief workers are attempting to handle at this time.

The pressure on relief workers

Many of the relief workers receive calls incessantly from people stranded in the mountains, children who are acutely ill, water purification issues, the need for gas to power generators, veterans that need supplies, even the need for more body bags at the morgue [Note: we have information that the death toll from various issues from landslides to Leptospirosis is far higher than is being reported], and many other critical situations too numerous to count. Then there are the accusations that FEMA is stockpiling food and water and not releasing it.

It never ends. Relief workers are exhausted both emotionally and physically. In Part III some revelations about the reasons Puerto Rico is still in the throes of desperation.

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David Begnaud 

✔@DavidBegnaud

#UnitedforPuertoRico raises 12.5M dollars, & questions about the organizations effectiveness

More with Governor: https://www.facebook.com/108679513654/videos/10155266589328655/ …

6:57 PM – Oct 24, 2017

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David Begnaud 

✔@DavidBegnaud

As of tonight, the U.S. Naval Ship “Comfort” has:

*31 registered patients onboard *85% of the beds are empty

*169 beds are available

5:00 PM – Oct 24, 2017

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David Begnaud 

✔@DavidBegnaud

Medical examiner in Puerto Rico has authorized 911 cremations

of “natural deaths” since Hurricane Maria https://www.buzzfeed.com/nidhiprakash/puerto-rico-cremations …

10:44 AM – Oct 27, 2017

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David Begnaud 

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Puerto Rico death toll: 51

3 of the 51 died from Leptospirosis

76 other cases of Lepto are suspected (most are alive & being treated)

10:57 AM – Oct 26, 2017

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David Begnaud 

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Puerto Death toll now 51

2 most recent deaths are from Leptospirosis, there 74 other “suspected” cases which need @CDCgov confirmation

9:45 AM – Oct 24, 2017

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David Begnaud 

✔@DavidBegnaud

“OFF THE GRID NOW!!” was the text message I just received from an engineer standing in front of the generators https://twitter.com/davidbegnaud/status/922301158667960320 …

8:25 PM – Oct 22, 2017

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David Begnaud 

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Two Navy ships used for helicopter support are leaving Puerto Rico: USS WASP & USS OAK HILL; “assets no longer needed” says @USNavy

7:20 AM – Oct 26, 2017

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David Begnaud 

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Maria disrupted production at Puerto Rican factories making drugs; hospitals are seeing shortages @DrLaPook reports https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/hurricane-maria-disrupted-production-of-medical-supplies/ …

8:23 PM – Oct 25, 2017

Hurricane Maria disrupted production of medical supplies

Hurricane Maria disrupted production at Puerto Rican factories that make critical drugs and medical supplies. Dr. Jon LaPook found that hospitals on the U.S. mainland are already seeing shortages.

cbsnews.com

 Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

This is the second in a series of articles by Faye Higbee on the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

 

The post PUERTO RICO PART II – MEDICAL ISSUES appeared first on Oath Keepers.

PUERTO RICO IS STILL STRUGGLING

By Faye Higbee – Oct. 26, 2017 – Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

The humanitarian crisis continues in Puerto Rico- is there something nefarious standing in the way of actual help? Shipments of aid have been blocked from reaching the west side of the island, and inexpensive flights into Puerto Rico have been difficult to find. There are literally tons of supplies sitting in hangars, being dumped in “bins” or dumpsters, and flights being blocked from going to the west side of the island where Hurricane Maria did the most damage.

FEMA “Co-opting” privately gathered supplies

We spoke to Bill Simmons from Oath Keepers, who told us that their donated supplies were sitting in an airplane hangar and not being disseminated- even re-packaged and re-labeled by FEMA. Thousands upon thousands of medical supplies that were donated by Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia are still sitting in a warehouse because they can’t get a flight. Likewise there are tons of supplies waiting in Florida as well. And that’s not counting the ones waiting in Puerto Rico for dissemination.

Bill told us that they had to have people on the ground with the supplies or they would be gone, taken by FEMA. That sentiment was also expressed by at least two other disaster relief workers.

Preparing to head out to areas that need supplies

Speaking with Hospital staff on medical needs

Giving out specially prepared care packages to locals

 

FEMA

In the event that people just don’t know the “rules,” we reached out to FEMA and asked what the rules are for packaging donations, how they disseminate donations, etc.  We were re-directed to their press person’s email the first time. The response we received a few days later was this:

 

You can make up your own minds about that response.

Mishandling of supplies by unknown person(s)

In the video below, perfectly good food and supplies were found in a garbage dump truck, and exposed to rats and rain in Patilla, Puerto Rico. Spoiled food. And that’s just the tip of this extremely huge iceberg. Who did this? Currently, that’s a mystery.

“We got tipped about the mishandling of some of the supplies in a distribution center in Patilla, and we were able to corroborate what we didn’t want to see. In a garbage dump truck we found pallets full of meals ready to be distributed at one time but now all spoiled. They were left under the rain in the open air under the sun subject to rodents and animals.” Luis Rivera Marin, Puerto Rico Secretary of State.

“It was a negligent and for me criminal” insists Puerto Rico’s @LuisRiveraMarin who says he found hurricane donations exposed to rain & rats pic.twitter.com/YElRFv2KXN

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) October 17, 2017

One of the disaster relief workers told us that the US Military has been helping and even preventing some of the supplies from being taken by what the people believed were FEMA workers. One airplane hangar full of pallets of water was about to be “co-opted,”  when the owner of the pallets realized that he had been re-directed to the wrong hangar. As he found the correct one, three USAF  servicemen came with him and prevented the FEMA workers from loading them up and taking them to an undisclosed location.

We will continue to follow this situation in Part II, as well as numerous reports of blocking supplies from getting to the needed areas. Absolutely, there are people being helped daily on the island by groups on the ground.  There simply appears to be some giant sized holes in the process.

From: Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

 

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OPERATION BANDIT – AN ABANDONED SERVICE DOG COMES HOME

By Faye Higbee   9/29/2017Operation Bandit is the journey of a service dog that ended up in a kill shelter and then the wrong home, when he was supposed to go to a veteran who was waiting for him. From an organization that unites service dogs with new homes to US Marine veterans, to a Marine veteran Police officer, to an Army veteran, it became a military mission to unite Derek with Bandit.

“See, a few weeks ago, someone sent me a link to a poor service dog down in Florida that had been abandoned in a kill shelter. His name was Bandit.  I could tell a lot by just the photo; he looked alone and sad, kind of like he had no one and just wished he had someone to rescue him and love him like they cared.  I thought to myself, holy crap that dog is me!  We have to find each other.”  Derek Chambers, US Army veteran

But it was tough trying to find each other in the middle of a convoluted series of problems.

Bandit’s journey began when a 3rd party organization contacted Derek and told him about a service dog at a shelter.

A “3rd party contacted him with our plea and then promised him Bandit when they couldn’t make that promise and then made it out to him that we went back on our promise. Not the case. We found out about Derek when they raised a fuss and let him know what happened so he was our number one choice when the family didn’t work.” Dena Van De Vanter

Derek was so excited he couldn’t sleep. His own Service Dog Maggie had unexpectedly passed away, and he wondered if he would ever be able to have a Service Dog again. Mila Leonard, founder of RWBDogTags  (Red, White, and Blue Dog Tags) and  Dena Van De Vanter at RWB, worked tirelessly in an effort to get Bandit to his forever home.

Dena contacted Derek and asked if he was still interested.

“Hell, Yeah!” was the response.

But his heart breaking response to Dena’s phone call was,

“If you get him to me, you’re not going to take him away from me are you?”

The route through the wrong home

Someone else had ended up with Bandit, but it didn’t work out and he once again was left without a forever home. He might have ended up at the Polk County Shelter, which generally euthanizes animals left there within a few hours.  But Operation Bandit was about to kick into high gear.

Operation Bandit

The dog was in Florida, and Derek was in Tennessee…a little logistics issue. RWB reached out to every one they could think of for transport, most of whom  could have cared less. “Meh” was the response from most, according to Dena.

They finally contacted Gail Fogel Pierce, who transports animals to better homes regularly. She was ready to go. It seemed as if they found the perfect method. A veterinarian examined Bandit and certified him healthy for travel. It was all set.

Until Gail was admitted to the hospital with a serious back injury and couldn’t take him to his new home.

An active duty Navy sailor also volunteered to take Bandit to Tennessee. But then Hurricane Irma hit. So that transport fell through as well, since it was unlikely that his CO would understand that he was rescuing a dog instead of reporting for duty.

The Military Mission Begins

RWB member Dade Newell, USMC veteran, had just moved to Florida, and started contacting his military friends, including Rick at Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children, who called Bill Simmons. Bill is a Marine Veteran, former military dog handler (5812), who is a member of the Oath Keepers.

He contacted Officer Nathan Naumann of the Pinellas Park Police, also a Marine veteran and dog handler, who went and picked up Bandit as his house guest until the path to his new dad could be ironed out. That action prevented Bandit from ending up in the kill shelter once again.

Bill told us that as soon as Bandit got to Officer Nathan’s home, he had perked up his ears and was “smiling” – he knew he was among friends.

“Ma’am, the Marines have landed.  You tell them, we’ve got this and will take care of our brother (Bandit) in need.” Bill Simmons

Bandit gives Officer Nathan goodbye kisses

Now they needed to get Bandit from Officer Nathan’s home to Derek in Tennessee. A homeless Army Veteran, Ian Carter, who himself has been going through hard times, volunteered to take Bandit to Derek. Because RWB didn’t want him to use his own limited resources, they planned to pay his gas and lodging for the trip, but he refused.

Ian and Bandit left early Thursday morning, 9-28-2017,  on the last leg of the journey.

Operation Bandit Completed

The moment Derek and Bandit are finally united!

Ian Carter, Bandit, and Derek Chambers

As you can see from the photos, Ian made it to meet up with Derek. Bandit is with his new Dad in a forever home. But if you thought that story ended there, you’d be mistaken.

Epilogue

The ladies at RWB Dog Tags went to work, and Mila was able to score a place for Ian to live. There will now be one less homeless veteran in America, thanks to their efforts!

As for Derek, he suffered a TBI during deployment, and has PTSD, which is why he needed a dog who would be with him at all times. He found that being outdoors, hunting and fishing helped him with the symptoms. So he founded an organization called Rifles to Reels.

“Bandit means everything. He is my key to leading the same life that everyone else lives. It’s hard not being able to go anywhere public because you don’t feel secure. It’s bad not to be able to feel like a normal person while just trying to do something as simple as go out to eat. For everyone to look at you weird when you ask for a table in the back so you can see the door and everyone inside. He gives me that security.” Derek Chambers

Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

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