Thursday, January 21, 2010

Transcript: Anderson Cooper: People are Dying Unnecessarily in Haiti (1-20-10)

Let me be the first to say (and I've saying it for days) the performance of the U.S. government, and UN, in Haiti is as bad or worse than Katrina. This is an outrage. It's a scandal. Read the complete transcript of Anderson Cooper's report from Haiti. He has been heroic in his reporting. He has denounced the failure to save lives, and does so nightly. Where are the other reporters exposing shocking failure to get aid to the people of Haiti:

COOPER: There have been multiple aftershocks since the earthquake hit, the strongest one hit early this morning as you probably heard; a magnitude 5.9. At the time we thought -- heard initially it was a 6.1, but it was a 5.9. There was panic in the street; there was a lot -- this sort of a surreal wail goes up, people screaming, running away from buildings.

There's a lot of fear here in this city about, you know, what's going to be -- javascript:void(0)what's going to happen and is another big earthquake going to come? So today was a real shock for a lot of people.

At General Hospital which is not too far from where we are right now, close to the presidential palace, there was an evacuation. They actually got all the patients out, moved them out of the building, they were afraid the building might collapse. They then had the structural engineers coming to look at the building and it was okay. But all of the patients were out there for much of the day under the hot Haitian sun.

The Red Cross had put up two tents but they didn't have any more tents, just two, they couldn't fit all the patients under it. It was really a surreal scene. And doctors there wanted us to come and look at the supply situation and why they are having such -- so many supply problems.

This morning, in fact, they couldn't have surgeries because they didn't have any surgical gloves. Take a look.

...COOPER (voice-over): In the courtyard of General Hospital, the sick, the injured sit in the sun and wait. After the earthquake this morning, the patients were brought here. The hospital building is fine but it will be hours before they can be moved back in. It is hot, it is humid, the patients are quickly getting dehydrated.

...DR. E. BENJAMIN, GENERAL HOSPITAL: We need everything needed for amputation, for sleeping pills, for post-op patient following infected-type of surgery, antibiotics, medication to put people to sleep, to resuscitate them and so on.

(voice-over): Haitian-American doctors and nurses and EMTs from the New York area arrived here Monday. They are stunned by the lack of supplies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have oxygen that I've been looking for the last two hours. I finally found this bag there and a gauge for my tank bag. I can't even find either a (INAUDIBLE) or a cannula and that woman is dying back there for oxygen.

DR. MARNELL MOORE, PODIATRIST, NEW JERSEY: We don't have enough supply. We tell you, you just have a below-the-knee amputation. You know what we are giving the patient for pain medication? Motrin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Motrin we're giving them, with bilateral amputation.

COOPER: Wait. So somebody who's just had an amputation, the only thing you are able to give them is Motrin?
.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But all you have is Motrin?

(voice-over): The hours are long and the patients keep coming. Medical teams are under great stress.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have had enough, okay? I have had enough.

COOPER: There are people here from all over the world trying to help but with supplies so low, they feel they can't do their jobs.

DR. DAVID GRISWELL, VIRGINIA HOSPITAL CENTER: We have been here now several days working and all these medical supplies and other equipment are sitting there at the tarmac at the airport and they are not moving out.

No one has fed these patients now in four days. Some of these people have not eaten in four days.

I just went up to the OR. They are working five cases in the same room. There's no electricity there. I don't know why somebody can't hook up a power generator so they can start giving anesthesia to these people.

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