UN Orders Doctors to Leave Haiti Hospital Due to “Security Concerns”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/16/haiti.abandoned.patients/index.html?hpt=T2
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.
The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.
CNN initially reported, based on conversations with some of the doctors, that the United Nations ordered the Belgian First Aid and Support Team to evacuate. However, Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.
He said it was a “tough decision” but that he accepted the U.N. offer to evacuate after a Canadian medical team, also at the hospital with Canadian security officers, left the site Friday afternoon. The Belgian team returned Saturday morning.
Video: Field hospital shutting down
Video: Doctors told to evacuate
Video: Haitian hospitals lack basics
Video: Is aid arriving fast enough?
RELATED TOPICS
Haiti
Earthquakes
Port-au-Prince
Gijs said the United Nations has agreed to provide security for Saturday night. The team has requested the Belgian government to send its own troops for the field hospital, which Gijs expects to arrive late Sunday.
Responding to the CNN report that Gupta was the only doctor left at the Port-au-Prince field hospital, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Saturday that the world body’s mission in Haiti did not order any medical team to leave. If the team left, it was at the request of their own organization, he said.
Edmond Mulet, the U.N. assistant secretary general for peacekeeping operations, told reporters later that local security officers deemed the makeshift hospital unsafe.
“It seems that we’ve heard some reports in the international media that the United Nations asked or forced some medical teams to not work any more in some clinic — that is not true, that is completely untrue,” Mulet said Saturday.
CNN video from the scene Friday night shows the Belgian team packing up its supplies and leaving with an escort of blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers in marked trucks.
View or add to CNN’s database of missing persons in Haiti
Gupta — assisted by other CNN staffers, security personnel and at least one Haitian nurse who refused to leave — assessed the needs of the 25 patients, but there was little they could do without supplies.
More people, some in critical condition, were trickling in late Friday.
“I’ve never been in a situation like this. This is quite ridiculous,” Gupta said.
With a dearth of medical facilities in Haiti’s capital, ambulances had nowhere else to take patients, some of whom had suffered severe trauma — amputations and head injuries — under the rubble. Others had suffered a great deal of blood loss, but there were no blood supplies left at the clinic.
Gupta feared that some would not survive the night.
He and the others stayed with the injured all night, after the medical team had left and after the generators gave out and the tents turned pitch black.
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this comment is for …
this comment is for thevee 909 while you are busy spouting nigga your dumass is under his wrath you are so stupid it is not about obama or black people it’s a global situation happening and it;s called NWO so wake up you stupid nigga redneck.
i try to warn you …
i try to warn you slow in the head black people that obama does not care anything about you, but you just insist on making him your black Jesus, He is leaving your to die,starve, & buried under rubble while your just making one excuse after another. Oh! obama’s going to send aid, oh! he’s going to help. you black people are in a total spirit of blindness.Your black is next!
I’m just commenting …
I’m just commenting to chime in ab out the UN being corrupt. I don’t know how much American hear about the UN, but here in England it’s been reported that UN soldiers were actively supporting a country’s violent solders who were killing (and raping if I remember rightly) citizens. When a UN guy spoke out about it, he was dismissed from his duties in that country. The UN is just as corrupt as a corrupt government. Please give money to Red Cross, etc., NOT the UN
Remember, most …
Remember, most people of developed countries are unable to face harsh ugly realities.
You would be surprised to know how many haitians know their being murdered.
They also know saying something about it at this won’t help them.
They can only beg for mercy.
Like someday soon we will too.
It’s not a big …
It’s not a big mystery for those who don’t spend their time watching television network news and think they know what’s going on.
The region has been deemed uninhabitable.
Researches have stated that the quakes will go on for years.
Except for cuba, no one is interested in migrating any hatians to their country.
It’s not soft kill anymore.
There will be another massive quake and they only want military personell on the island.
You did not, as a …
You did not, as a matter of fact, pronounce the names right but you must have a lot of time trying to prove the UN want people to be sick and die off. I feel so sorry for people trying to defend opinions like yours. You must feel isolated I guess, bless you but let the rest of us be blessed by the fact that you are an exception…
Gupta is such a ” …
Gupta is such a “media whore”. If he is so offended, why don’t he just leave?
Those doctors are running on empty and probably felt they could take a short, but much needed break while “Team Gupta” held down the fort. I guess they were wrong.
THOSE DOCS WANTED …
THOSE DOCS WANTED MORE MONEY!
its true……… …
its true………Haiti was suffering severly BEFORE the earthquake and now its beyond severe. Unfortunately many more people will die over the next days,weeks,and months.
The UN is a corrupt …
The UN is a corrupt organization. DO NOT GIVE Money to these kleptocrats.