hispanicnews
Members of Congress want a federal audit of the official Puerto Rico death toll.
“The American people deserve to know what’s happening to their fellow US citizens in Puerto Rico.”
Two Democratic members of Congress on Thursday requested an audit of the death toll in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, amid concerns that the government is undercounting the number of victims.
The request cites a Vox report published Wednesday that found a significant discrepancy between the government’s official death toll of 45 and reports from the ground. Our analysis found a total of 81 deaths linked directly or indirectly to the hurricane; another 450 reported deaths, most of causes still unknown; and reports of at least 69 people still missing.
In their letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) wrote, “It would be morally reprehensible to intentionally underreport the true death toll to portray relief efforts as more successful than they are. If, on the contrary, this information has benignly been muddled due to a lack of capacity on the island, then the federal government must work hand-in-hand with Puerto Rico's government to provide a clearer assessment.”
Velazquez and Thompson went on to ask the Department of Homeland Security to do the following:
Conduct a federal examination of all death estimates provided by local authorities.
Evaluate the accuracy of such estimates and whether or not their methodology is appropriate.
Send a report of these findings to Congress within 10 days.
“The American people deserve to know what’s happening to their fellow U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico,” Velázquez said in a statement. “Given recent reports suggesting that the death toll is much higher than is being officially acknowledged, we need a swift and thorough investigation to ensure the real magnitude of this crisis is made public.”
Keep reading...Show less
Puerto Ricans still desperate for water weeks after Hurricane Maria.
Half of the island’s residents have no access to clean drinking water.
Puerto Ricans Still Desperate for Water Weeks after Hurricane Maria
October 9, 2017/in Drinking Water, United States, Water News, Water Quality /by Kayla Ritter
Half of the island’s residents have no access to clean drinking water.
Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Photo by Sgt. Jose Ahiram Diaz-Ramos/PRNG-PAO)
The Rundown
Two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, islanders are still in dire need of water and other amenities such as food, fuel, and medicine. The arrival of aid to the island has been sluggish, and its delivery is being obstructed by widespread damages to infrastructure alongside downed electricity and cell service. Although the island has seen some areas of improvement—over 70 percent of supermarkets and gas stations are now operational—conditions remain grave following the worst hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 90 years.
“Well, at least the water arrived — that’s a first. That’s for today. I guess tomorrow we have to come back. The people here were waiting, and it was not coming. We were so desperate.” –Aida Nieves, a resident of Cánovanas, Puerto Rico, in reference to the arrival of aid after two weeks of waiting. Nieves received two meals and a 24-pack of bottled water to sustain her household of eight people indefinitely. Other residents of the island, especially those living in isolated inland areas, are still waiting for basic amenities.
By The Numbers
34 The latest Hurricane Maria death toll in Puerto Rico, according to a Tuesday update by Governor Ricardo Roselló. Nineteen deaths were due to drowning, mudslides or falling objects; the rest of the deaths were caused indirectly by heart attack, suicide, or power outages that cut off oxygen or other life-saving assistance at hospitals. The Governor warned that the death toll may continue to rise.
53 percent Proportion of Puerto Ricans who do not have access to clean drinking water as of Tuesday. Many residents have resorted to fetching water from streams and rivers to meet their daily needs. In San Juan, a bottle of water reportedly costs $6.
91 percent Proportion of Puerto Rican homes and businesses that remain without power as of Wednesday. Governor Roselló expects that 75 percent will still be without electricity a month from now.
88 percent Proportion of islanders who do not have cell service as of Wednesday. A Department of Defense press release on hurricane relief efforts reported that “communications remain a challenge.” AT&T; mobile cell towers are being delivered to Puerto Rico in an effort to regain connectivity.
51 Number of Puerto Rico’s hospitals that are relying on generator power, compared to 14 hospitals with functioning electricity. A floating U.S. Navy hospital ship has arrived in San Juan to aid storm victims.
Science, Studies, And Reports
The U.S. Department of Defense is publishing daily reports on disaster relief efforts on the island. The DoD’s Wednesday update emphasized the military’s efforts to clear roads and rebuild bridges in order to distribute aid to all Puerto Rico residents. More than 10,000 DoD personnel are on the ground and eighty military aircraft are flying supplies around the island.
On The Radar
Over half of Puerto Ricans are without drinking water, and the potential for waterborne diseases is on the rise. Unfortunately, this is not the first issue Puerto Rico has had with its water supply. Even before Hurricane Maria, the island had the highest rate of drinking water violations of any state or territory. In 2015, over 60 percent of islanders got their water from sources that violated federal health standards. Crumbling infrastructure, pollution, and underinvestment are largely to blame. Now that Hurricane Maria has dealt another blow to Puerto Rico’s fragile water supply, the Puerto Rican government must commit to rebuilding water infrastructure in a sustainable way, or else water issues will continue to plague the island for decades to come.
Resources And Further Reading
After Hurricane Maria, 95 percent of Puerto Rico still without power (ABC News)
Aid Is Getting to Puerto Rico. Distributing It Remains a Challenge. (The New York Times)
Higher Puerto Rico Death Toll Reflects Survey Across Island (The New York Times)
Hurricane Maria worsens Puerto Rico’s water woes (The Hill)
Trump praises response to Puerto Rico, says crisis straining budget (Reuters)
With little food, water or power, Puerto Rico residents say ‘no one has come’ to help (ABC News)
With long lines for food, water and fuel, Puerto Ricans help each other (USA Today)
DoD Hurricane Relief (Defense.gov)
The following two tabs change content below.
Keep reading...Show less
Hurricane damage in Puerto Rico leads to fears of drug shortages nationwide.
Two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, manufacturers are rushing to get their plants on the island back on line to avoid production problems.
Hurricane Damage in Puerto Rico Leads to Fears of Drug Shortages Nationwide
By KATIE THOMAS and SHEILA KAPLANOCT. 4, 2017
A factory owned by the pharmaceutical company Mylan, which makes the childhood leukemia drug methotrexate, in Caguas, P.R., is one of 80 drug manufacturing plants struggling to stave off shortages of critical medicines in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Credit Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times
Federal officials and major drugmakers are scrambling to prevent national shortages of critical drugs for treating cancer, diabetes and heart disease, as well as medical devices and supplies, that are manufactured at 80 plants in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.
Pharmaceuticals and medical devices are the island’s leading exports, and Puerto Rico has become one of the world’s biggest centers for pharmaceutical manufacturing. Its factories make 13 of the world’s top-selling brand-name drugs, from Humira, the rheumatoid arthritis treatment, to Xarelto, a blood thinner used to prevent stroke, according to a report released last year.
With business of nearly $15 billion a year at stake in Puerto Rico, drug companies and device makers are confronting a range of obstacles on the island: locating enough diesel fuel for generators to run their factories; helping their employees get to work from areas where roads are damaged and blocked, electricity is down and phones don’t work. Companies have taken out radio ads pleading with workers to check in. The pharmaceutical and device industries contribute to the employment of nearly 100,000 people on the island, according to trade groups.
“Some of these products are critical to Americans,” Scott Gottlieb, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told a congressional panel this week. “A loss of access could have significant public health consequences.”
Dr. Gottlieb, who visited F.D.A. staff in Puerto Rico last week, told the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on Health: “We have a list of about 40 drugs that we’re very concerned about. It reflects maybe about 10 firms.”
Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE
Trump Lobs Praise, and Paper Towels, to Puerto Rico Storm Victims OCT. 3, 2017
Puerto Rico: What Other Americans Should Know SEPT. 25, 2017
Puerto Rico’s Agriculture and Farmers Decimated by Maria SEPT. 24, 2017
Drug Shortages Forcing Hard Decisions on Rationing Treatments JAN. 29, 2016
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
Thirteen of the drugs, Dr. Gottlieb said, are “sole-source,” meaning the product is made only by one company. Those include H.I.V. medications, injectable drugs and sophisticated medical devices, although he did not name the products. The biggest problem, he said, was not damage to the factories, but the instability of the electric supply. Manufacturers are worried that a long-term lack of connection to a major power grid could jeopardize their products, and are also wary of relying on the more limited electrical grids that the territory is likely to activate as a first step to restoring power.
One of the drugs F.D.A. officials said they were concerned about was methotrexate, which treats childhood leukemia and other diseases. It has been scarce, off and on, for several years. Mylan makes the product in Puerto Rico, and all five manufacturers of the injectable form of the drug have reported shortages of the product, according to a list maintained by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
In a statement, Mylan did not address the methotrexate shortage but said it was “working closely with F.D.A. to help address drug shortage concerns.” Its plant has sources of water, electricity and communication, and the company said it is “working on ways to make them sustainable for manufacturing purposes.” Like other companies, it said it was focusing on helping employees and other residents of the island with basic needs, including chartering a cargo plane carrying essential goods to deliver to them.
Several pharmaceutical and medical device companies said that their factories were coming back on line with the assistance of generators and that they did not anticipate supply shortfalls. But others said the situation was precarious. Drug companies depend on consistent refrigeration to avoid shortages. And device makers are wondering when the power grid would be back up, which some officials have predicted could take months.
“Everybody is struggling to get diesel fuel — that’s just widespread,” said Antonio Medina, an independent consultant who until last year was executive director of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, a government-run group that promotes manufacturing.
Wilberto Maldonado, a pharmaceutical consultant in Puerto Rico, said drug and device makers were navigating a logistical “nightmare,” especially when trying to get access to fuel for their generators.
With phone lines down, “many employers have people still unaccounted for,” Mr. Maldonado said in a message through LinkedIn. “This may not improve, as telecom service providers are also depending on backup generators.”
Industry officials have sought to strike a delicate balance in making their case for help without appearing to divert precious resources from hospital and other emergency services. Returning the drug and device industry to its feet, however, is crucial for ensuring the island’s economic recovery as well as safeguarding the supply of medicines and devices to the rest of the United States.
If the manufacturing plants are slow to fully recover, some companies could shift their production elsewhere, said Deepak Lamba-Nieves, research director at the Center for a New Economy, a nonpartisan economic think tank in Puerto Rico. “That may have medium and long-term consequences for an island that is going to be hugely and severely impacted by this hurricane for many years to come,” he said.
Lobbyists and executives from health care companies met Tuesday with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make their pitch for assistance.
Photo
Fallen wires hung just outside the Mylan facility on Wednesday. Challenges to getting the drug manufacturers up and running again include locating diesel fuel to power their generators and helping their employees get to work in areas where roads are blocked, electricity is down and phones don’t work. Credit Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times
AdvaMed, the trade group for the device makers, said its requests included priority access as the electricity grid is restored.
“Even if companies are fine now with diesel fuel, we want to make sure we’re in the queue in terms of priority,” said Greg Crist, a spokesman for AdvaMed. “Because if there is an electricity shortage well into November, for example, how can we as an industry make sure we are in line for those priorities, once you’ve taken care of hospitals and essential needs?”
While AdvaMed has outlined its members’ challenges, its pharmaceutical counterpart — the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — provided fewer specifics and referred questions to Healthcare Ready, an industry group that is coordinating the recovery operations in Puerto Rico.
Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story
The Well Newsletter
Get the best of Well, with the latest on health, fitness and nutrition, delivered to your inbox every week.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME
Several drug companies said that while their plants lost power and were forced to shut down, they were not anticipating a disruption in supply. “We have a strong local team working through incredible logistical challenges, and we’re seeing progress each day,” said Ernie Knewitz, a spokesman for Johnson & Johnson. Tylenol and Prezista, an H.I.V. drug, are among the products that the company manufactures in Puerto Rico. “We are also closely monitoring our product inventory levels and will work to ensure all critical needs are met.”
The industry’s rosy outlook, presumably offered in part to assure nervous shareholders, contrasted with the concern expressed by Dr. Gottlieb.
“We know that the grid is going to be unstable for a long period of time,” Dr. Gottlieb said. “The generators were never meant to operate for months and months on end.”
Erin Fox, a drug shortage expert at the University of Utah, said she and other hospital pharmacists were monitoring the situation, and were worried that the storm’s impact could exacerbate the United States’ already dire drug-shortage problem.
Ms. Fox said companies typically do not disclose where they manufacture their drugs because it is considered a trade secret. Several companies declined to list which products they made in Puerto Rico.
“Because we have no transparency around that,” she said, “it’s actually hard to know the true impact of this.”
Baxter, a medical-supply company, has said that it is limiting shipments of products made in Puerto Rico to conserve its supply, including small bags of dextrose and saline, which are used by hospitals to prepare medication. Hospitals will be limited to their typical monthly shipment to prevent some institutions from stockpiling the products.
Ms. Fox said hospitals rely on these small bags of saline solution to mix medicines for patients, and “an allocation doesn’t guarantee that you will get some.”
A few years ago, Baxter was at the center of a shortage of large saline bags that led to state and federal investigations into its business practices.
Baxter said that its three manufacturing sites in Puerto Rico sustained “some damage,” and that “limited production activities” had resumed at all of its plants.
Puerto Rico has been a hub of drug manufacturing for decades — companies were lured to the island because of tax breaks and its access to the United States market, along with skilled employees who worked for lower wages. About a decade ago, expiring tax incentives led to a wave of factory closings, stoking fears that the industry was in jeopardy.
Today, the drug and device industries remain a mainstay of the Puerto Rican economy. Pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing accounted for nearly three-quarters of Puerto Rico’s exports in 2016, of $14.5 billion, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“These are some of the best jobs,” Mr. Medina said.
Dr. Gottlieb hopes the companies stay there.
“A highly skilled, highly dedicated and highly productive Puerto Rican work force enables the success of the industry,” Dr. Gottlieb said. “If they decide to relocate after this disaster, it would jeopardize the island’s economic future.”
A version of this article appears in print on October 5, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Drug Shortages Are New Concern In Wake of Storm. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Continue reading the main story
FROM OUR ADVERTISERS
RECENT COMMENTS
Steve 4 hours ago
Its plant (Mylan) has sources of water, electricity and communication, and the company said it is “working on ways to make them sustainable...
Kittredge White 4 hours ago
How generous, how sweet! It's really funny how no one gave a hoot about PR until corporate bottom lines were at risk...
Mountain Dragonfly 4 hours ago
Great time to put some money into getting these operations back up and running. Would be a political win as it would provide JOBS!!!! and...
SEE ALL COMMENTS
Keep reading...Show less
Desperation grows in Puerto Rico’s poor communities without water or power.
The health crisis is intensifying two weeks after Hurricane Maria, and government aid is slow. 'We could see significant epidemics,' a health expert warned.
BY PHIL MCKENNA
FOLLOW @MCKENNAPR
Public health conditions are rapidly deteriorating across Puerto Rico as government agencies struggle to restore basic services such as power and clean drinking water and deliver emergency supplies two weeks after Hurricane Maria ravaged the U.S. territory. The situation is dire across much of the island but even more so for its most vulnerable, low-income minority communities.
Only about half the territory's residents had access to potable drinking water, and electricity had been restored to just 5 percent of Puerto Rico as of Tuesday, when President Donald Trump visited the capital, San Juan, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"The sense of desperation is only growing with every passing day," said Chris Skopec, executive vice president for global health and emergency response with Project HOPE, a Millwood, Virginia-based nonprofit now working in Puerto Rico. "In these kinds of conditions, the ability for an epidemic to spread is really ripe."
In Caño Martín Peña, a densely populated community of mostly wooden homes originally built by impoverished squatters in a flood zone in the heart of San Juan, existing public health issues were exacerbated by the storm.
The community is plagued by untreated sewage that flows into the adjacent Martín Peña Channel. Before Hurricanes Irma and Maria, even moderate rainstorms would cause the debris-clogged channel to overflow, sending raw sewage into basements and causing skin rashes and asthma. Outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases dengue and Zika are common in the community of 23,000, where 25 percent of adults are unemployed and the median household income is $13,500, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.
"People are drinking whatever comes from the faucet, and it's turbid," said Lyvia Rodríguez del Valle, executive director of the Caño Martín Peña Land Trust Project Corporation, a public-private partnership working with the community. "People lost their roofs. They cannot close their doors, so we are having issues with mosquito bites and other insects, we are having plagues like rats and everything else."
Volunteers from outside aid organizations have helped clear trees and other debris from the streets, but the government response is just starting, Rodríguez del Valle said. Government officials provided an initial delivery of 60 blue tarps on Sunday to the community where 800 families lost their roofs. City garbage trucks began removing debris piles the same day.
"We have barely seen the government here," Rodríguez del Valle said.
More than 12,300 federal staff representing 36 departments and agencies are now on the ground in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands engaged in response and recovery operations, according to FEMA.
'We Could See Significant Epidemics'
Rodríguez del Valle said the mosquito bites that have been reported in Caño Martín Peña in recent days suggest diseases like dengue, Zika or chikungunya, which take several days or longer to surface after the initial bites, are on their way.
Health experts say mosquito- and water-borne diseases present a serious concern for all of Puerto Rico.
"Unless there is massive intervention to implement some type of health infrastructure, we could see significant epidemics in the coming weeks," said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
"I'm concerned about typhoid, paratyphoid and shigella [bacterial diseases that can spread through non-potable water] on the diarrheal side and the vector-borne diseases, especially dengue, because we have dengue in Puerto Rico every year anyway," Hotez said.
Twenty miles east of San Juan in Loiza, a coastal community where 65 percent of residents are black and and nearly half of residents live below the poverty level, there are already reports of diarrheal diseases.
"We are seeing increasing rates of gastrointestinal disease as there are increasing reports of people drinking river water, and otherwise unable to access clean water," Skopec, of Project HOPE, said. "It's a very bad situation and the outlook is that it's going to continue to get worse before it gets better."
Skopec, whose organization is operating a mobile clinic and conducting home visits in the town, said the exact cause of the disease is not known.
On Radio, Hospitals Beg for Fuel for Generators
South of San Juan in Salinas, a low-income community largely of African descent on the Caribbean Coast, community leaders say they have received little outside assistance.
"The hospitals are on the radio asking for diesel and fuel to run their generators," said Ruth Santiago, an environmental lawyer for Comité Diálogo Ambiental, Inc. (Environmental Dialogue) in Salinas. "Elder centers, they are asking families to pick up their relatives."
In an address in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, President Trump praised his administration's response to the storm and compared Hurricane Maria, where the early reported death toll from the hurricane was 16 people, to what he called a "real catastrophe like Katrina" where thousands died.
The governor of Puerto Rico raised the official death count to 34 after Trump left, but that, too, is likely low. Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism reported that morgues are at capacity, the official system for registering deaths is barely functioning, and the number could rise into the hundreds due to the territory's damaged health care infrastructure.
Leaving Home Behind: 'You Try to Be Strong'
Santiago has driven back and forth to San Juan four times in the past two weeks since Maria made landfall, but she said she is only starting to see military and other supply vehicles on the roads in recent days.
"I don't know why were are not getting the kinds of things that are basic necessities 13 days out from Hurricane Maria," Santiago said. "I know many people who are getting airline tickets and they are just leaving."
Airlines are now offering reduced airfares for those seeking to leave the island, though commercial flights remain limited after Maria severely damaged radar equipment at the main airport, in San Juan.
Cruise ship company Royal Caribbean International offered free passage to thousands of evacuees from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands aboard a ship that arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday.
For those who evacuate the region and those who remain, many will have to cope with mental health issues related to the storm.
Marcella Chiapperino lost her home and business in Frederiksted, St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to Hurricane Maria after both had been battered by Hurricane Irma two weeks before. Chiapperino said she had her first real night of sleep after boarding the Royal Caribbean ship last Thursday but was still haunted by nightmares. "I was woken up by a dream of this wave coming and wind and pulling me outside the window," she said. "It just sucked me out."
"You try to be strong," she said, "but I think a lot of people will have some kind of post traumatic experience from this."
Keep reading...Show less
As Trump set to visit Puerto Rico, 95 percent lack power.
President Donald Trump is set to make his first visit to Puerto Rico, and is likely to face more criticism of his handling of the disaster.
* Trump due in Puerto Rico on Tuesday
* Only about 5 pct of customers have power restored
* Governor: 'There is no cash on hand' (Adds resident saying conditions slowly improving, paragraphs 6-9)
By Robin Respaut and Gabriel Stargardter
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Oct 2 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is set to make his first visit to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory, and is likely to face more criticism of his handling of the disaster as the vast majority of inhabitants lack power and phone service and are scrambling for food, clean water and fuel.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz led the attack on the administration's response on Friday, criticizing an official's description of relief efforts as a "good news story" and urging Trump to act more decisively. Trump fired back at Cruz on Twitter, accusing her of "poor leadership."
It is not clear if the two will meet during Trump's visit.
"She (Cruz) has been invited to participate in the events tomorrow, and we hope those conversations will happen and that we can all work together to move forward," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Monday.
Trump will spend "significant time" on the island. He is due in Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with people affected by Sunday's mass shooting.
For 72-year-old Angel Negroni of Juana Matos, the situation has begun to improve as flood waters receded from his neighborhood, located 20 minutes from San Juan.
Locals could occasionally get spotty cellular service, an improvement from the communication vacuum of days earlier. And he can trade his neighborhood's restored municipal water for ice made by a friend's generator-powered freezer.
"It's better now," said Negroni, while standing on his covered porch on Monday, cooking fish on a propane-powered camping stove. "We're OK."
At least 5.4 percent of customers in Puerto Rico had their power restored by mid-morning on Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Department, with San Juan's airport and marine terminal and several hospitals back on the power grid. It said the head of Puerto Rico's power utility expects 15 percent of electricity customers to have power restored within the next two weeks.
Mobile phone service is still elusive. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Monday 88.3 percent of cellphone sites - which transmit signals to create a cellular network - were out of service, virtually unchanged from 88.8 percent on Sunday.
FEMA Administrator Brock Long on a trip to the island on Monday said things were improving with traffic moving and businesses reopening.
"I didn't see anybody in a life-threatening situation at all," he told reporters. "We have a long way to go in recovery," adding that rebuilding Puerto Rico is "going to be a Herculean effort."
GAS FLOWING
Nearly two weeks after the fiercest hurricane to hit the island in 90 years, everyday life was still severely curtailed by the destruction. The ramping up of fuel supplies should allow more Puerto Ricans to operate generators and travel more freely.
"We've been increasing the number of gas stations that are open," Governor Ricardo Rossello said at a news briefing, with more than 720 of the island's 1,100 gas stations now up and running.
Puerto Rico relies on fuel supplies shipped from the mainland United States and distribution has been disrupted by the bad state of roads.
Within the next couple of days, Rossello expects 500,000 barrels of diesel and close to 1 million barrels of gasoline to arrive on the island. All of Puerto Rico's primary ports have reopened but many still have restrictions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
At least four tankers carrying fuel are waiting to unload with two more on the way, according to Thomson Reuters shipping data.
"The flow is coming, gasoline is getting here," Rossello said. "We have been able to reduce the time that it takes to get gasoline and diesel at different stations."
Federal and local authorities were working together to keep 50 hospitals operational and Rossello said the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort would arrive in Puerto Rico between Tuesday and Wednesday.
RUNNING OUT OF CASH
As it tries to get back on its feet, Puerto Rico is in danger of running out of cash in a matter of weeks because the economy has come to a halt in the hurricane's aftermath, Rossello told the local El Nuevo Dia newspaper in an interview published on Monday.
After filing for the largest U.S. local government bankruptcy on record in May, Puerto Rico owes about $72 billion to creditors and another $45 billion or so in pension benefits to retired workers.
What little cash it has is now being diverted to emergency response while it works to secure aid from the federal government. The grinding halt to the economy will delay a fiscal recovery plan and negotiations with creditors.
"There is no cash on hand. We have made a huge effort to get $2 billion in cash," Rossello said in the interview. "But let me tell you what $2 billion means when you have zero collection: it's basically a month government's payroll, a little bit more."
Trump's administration is preparing to ask Congress for $13 billion in aid for Puerto Rico and other areas hit by natural disasters, congressional sources said. The island's recovery will likely cost more than $30 billion.
Keep reading...Show less
Maria’s dead in Puerto Rico are underreported.
In official counts, Hurricane Maria has only left a handful of Puerto Ricans dead. But, the storm's real death toll is only beginning to be tallied.
Leovigildo Cotté died in the midst of desperation over not getting the oxygen needed to keep him alive in the only shelter that exists in the town of Lajas, which has been without electricity since the passing of Hurricane María a week ago. Not even his connections with the government saved him.
“The generator never arrived,” said sadly the current Mayor of Lajas, Marcos Turín Irizarry, who said he looked for oxygen for Cotté, father of the former mayor of that same town, “turning every stone,” but could not find it.
Cotté is one of the unaccounted victims of the Category 5 hurricane that devastated all of Puerto Rico last week, with its sustained winds and gusts of up to 200 miles per hour. On Wednesday, the Government of Puerto Rico, still held that the official number of deaths as a result of the catastrophe was 16, but the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, for its initials in Spanish) has confirmed that there are dozens and could be hundreds in the final count.
The fatalities related to circumstances created by the hurricane are still mounting with each passing day, and official numbers are not counting patients who are not receiving dialysis, oxygen and other essential services, such as Pedro Fontánez, 79, who is bedridden at the Pavía Hospital in Santurce and who the institution is attempting to release since Saturday, while he lacks electricity at home to support the oxygen and gastric tube-feeding he needs to continue living. His daughter Nilka Fontánez showed up desperate at the government’s Emergency Operations Center asking for help, but was told they were not accepting patients there.
“There’s no information,” she said frustrated.
The dead are at the hospital morgues, which are at capacity and in remote places where the Government has yet to go, and in many cases, their families are unaware of the deaths. The Demographic Registry certifies the deaths so bodies can be removed by funeral homes, many of which are also not operating for a lack of resources and fuel. They barely began certifying some of the dead on Monday, as Health Secretary Rafael Rodríguez-Mercado confirmed in an interview.
Nilka Fontanez. Photo credit: Omaya Sosa, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
Public Safety Secretary Héctor Pesquera told the CPI that the names of the dead due to the hurricane will not be revealed, as the lack of communication has kept many people from knowing the whereabouts of their families. Since the hurricane, many people have gone daily to radio stations so that the on-air personalities can say the names of family members with whom they have been unable to communicate in a desperate attempt to find them.
A week after María’s passage, the Government of Puerto Rico is trying with great difficulty to supply basic services, such as fuel, roads and communications and tells the world every day of the progress of these efforts through their press conferences at the Emergency Operations Center (COE, for its initials in Spanish) established in San Juan. But the fact that is not discussed is that the number of deaths resulting from the disaster are much higher than the 16 or 19 that have been offered as the official tally.
CPI sources in half a dozen hospitals said those bodies are piling up at the morgues of the 69 hospitals in Puerto Rico, of which 70% are not operating. The majority of the hospital morgues that provided information including Doctor’s Center in Bayamón and Santurce, Pavía Hospital in Santurce, the Manatí Medical Center, Dr. Pila in Ponce, the Río Piedras Medical Center, the Mayagüez Medical Center and the HIMA hospitals in Caguas and Bayamón, are at full capacity. Those hospitals are among the 18 that are partially operational.
Furthermore, this media outlet learned that the Institute of Forensic Sciences is also full of bodies and that allegedly 25 of those are hurricane victims. On Tuesday, the IFS informed that it had increased its storage capacity for bodies with a trailer that was obtained through DMORT federal program.
It’s unclear what is happening with the deceased that are at the morgues of the 51 hospitals that have had to close their doors, with which it has been impossible to communicate.
Secretary Rodríguez-Mercado acknowledged that hospital morgues are full, including the one at the Medical Center in Mayagüez. He said the accumulated bodies cannot be removed from the morgues by funeral homes until the deaths can be certified by the Demographic Registry, who barely began operating from regional emergency centers on Monday.
Furthermore, the doctor acknowledged that the hurricane-related deaths are many more than those officially documented so far. As he said Monday, the three hospitals he visited that day in the island’s western region, during the first contact he was able to achieve with that region, he documented seven additional deaths “to the 19” that had been revealed so far. That same afternoon, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said the official figure of hurricane-related deaths was still 16.
To date, Rodríguez did not know the status of the situation at the hospitals in Ponce, because the region remained completely cut off from communications, but planned to go to that town on Tuesday to explore the matter. On Wednesday, the CPI learned through Ponce Mayor María “Mayita” Meléndez that the hospitals operating in that town are San Cristóbal and San Lucas.
“We’re finding dead people, people who have been buried. Related to the hurricane (we have) 19 dead, which the governor reported, but (people) have made common graves. We’ve been told people have buried their family members because they’re in places that have yet to be reached,” the Secretary told the CPI, while visibly shaken.
The scenario is not optimistic. The hospitals that closed their doors during the week that the emergency has lasted have more than 4,000 beds, and when asked what happened to those patients, where they were transferred, the Secretary responded with a sincere “I don’t know.”
CPI sources said that in just two of the hospitals that are operating, they were they able to document a dozen deaths among patients that were transferred out of the closed-down hospitals. Furthermore, they pointed out that the problem is that patients are arriving in critical condition, with ventilators, for example, and with poorly documented records regarding what had happened at the institution where they were hospitalized. For that reason, and the limitation of resources and fuel for power generators, the majority of hospitals that are “operational” are not accepting transfers or new patients, they said. The Río Piedras Medical Center, the government’s main hospital for this disaster and the only tertiary hospital in Puerto Rico, has been operating at half capacity.
Rodríguez-Mercado said Wednesday that on that same day, they would meet with specialized authorities from the U.S. Department of Health to discuss the protocols used to handle cadavers to prevent a budding public health problem. He said the current protocol for disposing bodies and vegetative material in emergency situations is managed by the Environmental Quality Board. But soon after, the president of that agency, Tania Vázquez, said in an interview that her agency only oversees the protocol related to disposing of animals, not human beings, but added that burying a dead person without a certification of the death is a crime. As of press time, the Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s press secretary had not responded to a petition to clear up who is responsible for the protocol for these emergency burials.
Meanwhile, the dead continue to accumulate as a result of the chaos in the health system due to a lack of diesel and the absence of a communications plan between the system’s components, and these must be added to those who are in areas that still lack communication and those in remote areas.
“We’re fighting. I would love for the government to understand that it has to open dialysis centers. If they don’t receive the service, the patients’ health is compromised quickly and they die. And yes, they have died,” Armando Rodríguez, vice president of Grupo HIMA confessed when confirming that the morgues of his two hospitals in Bayamón and Caguas is above capacity.
Meanwhile, thousands of doctors and nurses are literally at home unable to work, said Dr. Joaquín Vargas, president of the Puerto Rico Primary Physicians Groups Association, who was at the COE to see if the government would set up an operations center where they could at least answer calls from citizens.
The CPI also learned that a large portion of specialized physicians is unable to work because hospitals don’t have supplies and the ability to conduct their procedures, nor basic resources such as fuel or electricity to run their medical practices.
Omaya Sosa Pascual is an investigative journalist with 20 years of experience and works currently as a freelance reporter. She has previously worked in radio, online news and television and for more than a decade was part of the reporting team at the daily, El Nuevo Día. Her writing has been published in many publications both local and international, and has won awards in and out of Puerto Rico. She is also a former president of the Overseas Press Club.
The Centro de Periodismo Investigativo was formed in 2007 as a nonprofit, and serves to provide access to information to the people of Puerto Rico.
Keep reading...Show less
Florida needs to step up for Maria evacuees, activists urge.
Gov. Rick Scott reiterated Sunday that his administration is mobilizing resources to provide relief on the island and help evacuees coming to Florida.
ORLANDO -- Florida leaders need to step up immediately to prepare for perhaps hundreds of thousands of evacuees from Puerto Rico, Orlando area legislators and progressive activists declared Sunday at a news conference.
“We need to have a special session right now to deal with this crisis,” said Democratic state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith. “We need to have as a state all hands on deck to be able to deal with what is happening on the island of Puerto Rico. We cannot wait until Jan. 1.”
His colleague, Democratic state Rep. Amy Mercado, choked up as she noted that, like countless others in Florida, she family members on Puerto Rico unaccounted for 10 days after Hurricane Maria Struck, and millions of people on the island lack power and running water.
“To prepare for this influx of hundreds of thousands of Americans to Florida we believe it is vital that the state responds proactively to ease the impact on state and local governments and reduce the challenges that evacuees themselves will face,” said Mercadoo, who has urged the governor to establish relief centers to help evacuees from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Gov. Rick Scott has not responded to the request for a special session, but he reiterated Sunday that his administration is mobilizing resources to provide relief on the island and help evacuees coming to Florida.
“As Puerto Rico continues to respond to and recover from Hurricane Maria, Florida stands ready to deploy all available resources and personnel to our neighbors to help in these efforts,” he said in a statement.
“Last week, during my visit to Puerto Rico with Governor Ricardo Rosselló, I saw the complete and total devastation brought to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. The crisis in Puerto Rico is unlike anything we have seen before and Florida is going to do everything in our power to help everyone impacted by this storm get back on their feet. I will continue to make sure that our state leaders are in contact with officials in Puerto Rico. The State of Florida stands with Puerto Rico and will keep working to make sure they have everything they need.,” Scott said.
The governor said National Guard, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Division of Emergency Management, and other state agencies are working with federal and Puerto Rican officials. Many state colleges and universities, including University of Central Florida, University of Florida, and Florida State, are waiving out-of-state tuition fees for students displaced by Maria, and disaster relief centers in Florida are in the works.
Sunday’s news conference at Iglesia Episcopal Jesus de Nazaret church was organized by Vamos4PR, an offically non-partisan group funded by Democratic-leaning unions and other organizations.
“We’re coming here today to address a huminitarian crisis. This isn’t politics. This about human life. We’re here for people,” said Father Jose Rodriguez, the church rector who said he is a Republican.
But policy is politics, and many of the myriad policies advocated by speakers Sunday to help evacuees -- restoring affordable housing funding in the state budget, expanding Medicaid, aggressively responding to climate change, allowing Puerto Rico to write off $72 billion in public debt -- are largely priorities for Democrats, not Republicans.
“Puerto Rico’s economic refugees have already been paying dearly for housing, and as we continue to see the growing impacts of climate change, a new group of climate refugees are likely to come to the mainland with even fewer resources and will face an even more difficult time locating affordable housing,” said Yulissa Arce, regional director of Organize Florida, which advocates for low- and moderate-income Floridians.
The devastation caused by Maria could have significant political repercussions in Florida, where statewide elections tend to be neck and neck. Puerto Ricans are one of the fastest growing populations in Florida and tend to lean Democrat, though both parties are courting them. Perceptions about the state’s response to Maria could be a vote driver in competitive races in 2018, including Gov. Scott’s expected campaign for U.S. Senate.
No one singled Gov. Scott out for specific criticism Sunday, but several suggested the Republican agenda in Tallahassee on issues like affordable housing and access to health insurance will come under greater scrutiny as people in need stream into Florida from Puerto Rico.
State Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, said his constituents have been taken aback that President Trump attacked the Mayor of San Juan rather than simply promising her more help was on the way.
“It shows people the consequences of not voting. Elections have consequences,” he said of Trump. “And don’t forget, next year is an election for governor, senate, and other offices. People are watching and won’t forget. We won’t let them.”
Keep reading...Show less
ORIGINAL REPORTING
MOST POPULAR
CLIMATE
