Security concerns cause doctors to leave hospital, quake victims

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.

He said the Belgian doctors did not want to leave their patients behind but were ordered out by the United Nations, which sent buses to transport them.

“There is concern about riots not far from here—and this is part of the problem,” Gupta said.

There have been scattered reports of violence throughout the capital.

“What is striking to me as a physician is that patients who just had surgery, patients who are critically ill, are essentially being left here, nobody to care for them,” Gupta said.

Not sure what to make of this; but riots do tend to discourage efforts to aid disaster victims.

Laurel

Haitian Violence Hampers Earthquake Relief Efforts

Violence in Haiti is hampering the assistance of earthquake victims as the U.S., the United Nations and aid groups work to deliver supplies to victims of the earthquake that ravaged the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.

Violent disturbances are impeding efforts to support the Haitian government in the fifth day after the disaster struck, U.S. Southern Command Lieutenant General Ken Keen, who is overseeing relief efforts, said on ABC’s “This Week” program.

Haiti’s voodoo priests object to mass burials

Dumping the dead in hurriedly excavated mass graves without proper rites is seen as desecration in a country where many believe in zombies—dead bodies brought back to life by supernatural forces who could persecute the living.

Another awful idea.

Laurel