AP: Disaster Plans Don't Address Nursing Homes

[Eugene]

Disaster Plans Don't Address Nursing Homes

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 20, 2006; 8:10 PM

WASHINGTON -- Federal plans to help evacuate the elderly and ill from a disaster
do not cover nursing home patients and provide inadequate transportation,
congressional investigators reported Thursday.

In response, the Pentagon and Homeland Security Department said state and local
officials are responsible for planning the evacuations of hospitals and nursing homes.

Before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast last Aug. 29, hospital and nursing
facility administrators faced the dilemma of whether to evacuate patients whose
health could be worsened by a move.

<snip>

In addition, the response plan does not provide for ambulances or helicopters
to evacuate patients from facilities. Instead, the guidelines begin to apply at a
mobilization center, such as an airport, and only after patients have been moved.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR2006072001700.html

[MadMaddie]

1. So you are on your own local communities....

cause the Homeland Security can't be bothered with trying to rescue Americans in crisis.....

[rodeodance]

2. still finger pointing.

[aaronbees]

3. "Is our children learning?"

Seriously, do these childish, federal goofballs learn anything from a disaster? Gotta love this quote:

'Steven J. Pecinovsky of the Homeland Security Department said the federal government "only becomes involved when the capabilities of the state and local governments are overwhelmed."'

Well, Mr. Pecinovsky, that'll be pretty damn soon for cash-strapped states and cities. Thanks a freakin' lot and send us a rowboat.

[chookie]

4. No money to protect America's most vulnerable citizens

Just money for war.

The security and lives of American citizens aren't as important as foreign military objectives.

And nobody -- their fellow Americans -- gives a shit. Look at what little interest this post has received at "progressive" DU.... I guess the sick and elderly just aren't as glamorous as other designated victims of injustice and neglect.

[Oak2004]

5. Not news, unfortunately, to me

I don't have much of a blog (I'm too busy to post to it regularly) but you can read what I was writing and thinking leading up to Katrina (I've got a hazards background, and I'm a wheelchair user):


http://muskie.poorandworkingpeople.us/blog/

The problem is a combination of not giving a damn and not understanding the problems.

If you read the literature put out on disaster planning for the disabled by FEMA, the Red Cross, etc, it's pretty much interchangable with the literature for able-bodied folks: Get emergency supplies, evacuate if ordered to do so, and be prepared to be on your own for three days.

Of course this sort of thing is so far removed from reality it's unbelievable.

Many, perhaps most, disabled people live in deep poverty -- storing food is a fantasy when you don't have enough ordinarily to make it to the end of the month.

Many disabled people have some pretty complicated transportation needs, and few own their own transportation. Here in Burlington we've got I think two wheelchair taxis, and another dozen or so special transportation authority lift vans. I live in a roughly 150-person high rise for the elderly and disabled built directly downwind from the railroad line, a sewage treatment plant, and the General Dynamics plant. Tell me how we evacuate everyone from here in case of a toxic spill?

And when people are dependent upon aides every day to get them out of bed, to feed them, even to close a window for them -- i.e., have a hard time being on their own for three hours on a good day -- telling them to be prepared to be on their own for three days makes me mad enough to fantasize giving the authors of such pamphlets a good hard punch in the nose.