Anderson Cooper reporting that physicians with Doctors Without Borders have been rerouted and could not land in Haiti. Yet, a politician was able to get in today.
Hmmn.
Doctors Without Borders are there in Haiti already.
http://tinyurl.com/yddqgfq
(snipped from article)
Doctors Without Borders said Sunday that, despite guarantees from the United Nations and the U.S. Defense Department, its cargo plane carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing in Port-au-Prince the day before and was rerouted to Samana, Dominican Republic.
The material was being sent by truck from Samana, said the group, also known in French as Médecins Sans Frontières. However, the re-routing added a 24-hour delay to the hospital's arrival.
A second Doctors Without Borders plane was able to land on Sunday. That plane carried additional medical supplies and hospital equipment, the group said, adding it is still concerned about delays in the delivery of vital supplies.
"MSF (Doctors without Borders) teams are currently working around the clock in five different hospitals in Port-au-Prince, but only two operating theaters are fully functional, while a third operating theater has been improvised for minor surgery due to the massive influx of wounded and lack of functional referral structures," the organization said.
The group said two of its medical teams have performed more than 100 operations since arriving in the country, but frustrations are high over the delays.
Planes are asked to divert elsewhere if they don't have the fuel to stay in a holding pattern, Col. Buck Elton of U. S. Special Operations Command South told reporters Sunday.
Only two planes had been diverted Sunday, he said.
Asked about the matter on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, deputy commander of U.S. Southern Command, said the Port-au-Prince airport, which is being run by the U.S. military, is operating at maximum capacity 24 hours a day.
"It's a matter of balance between getting relief supplies on the ground, getting the people on the ground that are necessary to get those relief supplies distributed, and getting the logistical capacity on the ground to continue that, and the vehicles so we can get it out by ground as well as by air," he said.
http://tinyurl.com/onyan94
But with thousands of tons of aid heading into Haiti,
the airport in Port-au-Prince "can't handle all the aid that's coming through," Belanger said.
The U.S. military has been helping Haitian authorities direct air traffic around Port-au-Prince, said Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. Joint Task Force Haiti. But he said
"literally hundreds" of flights are trying to land at Port-au-Prince, which has "one tarmac, one runway, one ramp for all the aircraft."
"It is a sheer volume issue," he said. "There are more planes that want to land here than we can accommodate in any given hour."
Also regarding Hillary Clinton getting to land in Haiti.
http://tinyurl.com/pfon5bn
The U.S. Coast Guard plane she arrived on was carrying 100 cases of water, 100 cases of meals-ready-to-eat, and food and toiletries for about 140 U.S. Embassy staff members. Fifty Americans, who have been waiting to be evacuated, will fly back to the United States when Clinton departs.
The other politician that arrived (sorry can't think of his name right now) is also a trained medical Doctor that was delivering medical supplies with plans to work in Haiti as part of the rescue effort with a medical relief organization he is a part of. (Will look for article again and provide link)
Sorry, not picking on you but just wanted to point out that these are prime examples of some of the less than "fully" truthful news reports on situations which tend to unnecessarily enrage and frustrate people and make the relief effort look bad. JMO
