{"id":332245,"date":"2017-10-26T23:01:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T22:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/rn-volunteers-back-from-puerto-rico-join-congress-members-to-urge-increased-aid-to-stem-health-crisis-national-nurses-united\/"},"modified":"2017-10-26T23:01:24","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T22:01:24","slug":"rn-volunteers-back-from-puerto-rico-join-congress-members-to-urge-increased-aid-to-stem-health-crisis-national-nurses-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/rn-volunteers-back-from-puerto-rico-join-congress-members-to-urge-increased-aid-to-stem-health-crisis-national-nurses-united\/","title":{"rendered":"RN Volunteers Back from Puerto Rico Join Congress Members to Urge Increased Aid to Stem Health Crisis | National Nurses United"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON – Registered nurse volunteers who recently returned from two weeks of providing nursing care and other disaster relief today joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress to call for increased aid to confront the ongoing humanitarian and health care crisis in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

The RNs, members of the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN)\u2014a disaster relief program sponsored by National Nurses United (NNU), the largest U.S. union of RNs\u2014were in Puerto Rico as part of a 300-member deployment led by the AFL-CIO, in conjunction with the Puerto Rican Federation of Labor and the San Juan Mayor\u2019s office. NNU sent 50 RNs from eight states in its deployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to the nurses who have traveled home from the frontlines of the crisis to tell their story.\u00a0 Thank you for saving lives, delivering hope, and fighting for more relief,\u201d said Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who called an official NNU report on conditions in Puerto Rico, presented to Congress today, \u201cquite an indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NNU\u2019s REPORT \u201cCONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO AND CALL FOR IMMEDIATE CONGREASSIONAL ACTION<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOur nurses went to Puerto Rico to provide basic nursing care, but, in community after community, they were shocked to find that Puerto Ricans were facing a deadly lack of food, water and shelter several weeks after Hurricane Maria struck the island,\u201d said Bonnie Castillo, RN, director of NNU\u2019s RNRN program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s deeply disturbing that the Trump administration continues to pat itself on the back \u2026 Just because something has been done, it doesn\u2019t mean much more doesn\u2019t need to be done,\u201d said Pelosi. \u201cSeventy-five percent of Puerto Ricans lack power, 35 percent do not have cell service, one million lack clean running water, three quarters of sewage treatment plants are still not functioning \u2026 We are calling on President Trump and the administration to treat this as a national emergency, with the urgency that Puerto Rico deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outlining the necessity for urgent assistance in a variety of areas\u2014particularly fixing the energy grid and giving a fiscal boost to Puerto Rico to prevent millions of residents from losing Medicaid coverage, Rep. Nydia M. Vel\u00e1zquez (D-NY), stressed, in her opening remarks, \u201cLets be clear, congress created this problems and Congress needs to fix it \u2026 Fixing Medicaid and the energy grid will not be easy or inexpensive, but they are part of what\u2019s necessary to heal Puerto Rico.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castillo reported that NNU had made 12 requests to have the volunteers meet with FEMA to testify on what they have witnessed\u2014only to be denied a meeting. FEMA\u2019s own website notes that those who have made it through the request process for follow up aid will receive an average of only $543 per household compared to $3,802 per household for residents affected by a similar hurricane disaster in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany communities our nurses encountered had never seen anyone from FEMA. And for those Puerto Ricans that did have contact with FEMA, many did not receive a sustaining level of food or water,\u201d said Castillo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have today here is a group of very courageous people who have given of their time and talent, and we thank you for caring and doing that which is so noble, that which so few people do in our society, which is to give help where help is needed,\u201d Rep. Jos\u00e9 E. Serrano (D-NY) said to the RNRN volunteers. \u201c[The people of Puerto Rico] are our fellow Americans; they\u2019ve served in our wars, they do pay taxes, and they should be treated equally \u2026 FEMA has to be a support arm, not a stumbling block. Puerto Rico deserves better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a member of congress, and we oversee the response provided by the federal government. I can say, the government response has been inadequate,\u201d said Rep. Luis V. Guti\u00e9rrez (D-IL)<\/p>\n

“Our nurses were deployed across the island, in urban and rural areas, and returned with heartbreaking stories,\u201d noted Cathy Kennedy, RN, a vice president of NNU who also served as lead RN for the healthcare teams on the deployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people they met continued to live in homes with roofs blown off, sleeping on soaking wet mattresses, black mold beginning to spread that can cause rashes, severe respiratory distress and other serious health problems,\u201d Kennedy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were so desperate for drinking water they were forced to make terrible choices — do they suffer from deadly dehydration or drink from contaminated streams that could also lead to death? Nurses report going into small towns and finding dangerously dehydrated babies lying listlessly in their mothers\u2019 arms,\u201d said Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we were there, we saw the beginning of a potentially lethal epidemic of leptospirosis, an animal-borne bacterial disease that can be fatal if not properly treated in time. One of our nurses described going into a community where every single resident seemed to be suffering from conjunctivitis. Nurses went door to door and saw people who they are afraid will die before food, water or medicine can reach them,\u201d Kennedy said<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one town I traveled to, one of the few where FEMA was present, I met a woman named Rosa who arrived with a family member to apply for aid at 3 am<\/span>, only to find there were already people in line. FEMA arrived at 7 am<\/span>, opened its doors at 8, and closed them at 10. Many people in line were never seen, and could not apply for assistance,\u201d noted Olivia Lynch, RN.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are these people supposed to do? Without electricity and internet access, they cannot apply for FEMA assistance online,\u201d said Lynch. \u201cFor those who made it through the line to apply for assistance, FEMA demanded paperwork to confirm routing numbers and home addresses that residents could simply not provide. Their homes had been flooded, their paperwork was wet or missing, and they have no electricity, internet or cell service to get that information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I travelled to Lo\u00edza, I worked with elderly residents who depended on insulin,\u201d said Christine Grant, RN. \u201cBecause there is no electricity, the insulin cannot be refrigerated, threatening its efficacy. The elderly residents I talked with had put their insulin in a bowl of tepid water, to try to keep it cool so that it would allow them to survive. The fact is that without refrigeration, people with diabetes, hypertension, and other illnesses, are at risk of severe illness and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany pharmacies in Puerto Rico can\u2019t refrigerate medications either. Because of the lack of electricity, many pharmacies also cannot access prescription orders that are stored electronically, so patients cannot get refills without a new prescription. With many doctors\u2019 offices closed, patients who have access to a pharmacy have been scrambling to find someone to write a prescription for them. Others may have access to a doctor, but not a pharmacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot be silent while millions of people continue to endure such treacherous conditions.\u00a0Given the growing climate crisis, it\u2019s essential that the federal government is prepared to respond expeditiously to increasingly dire natural disasters. It is unacceptable that the richest country on earth is denying necessary aid to its own citizens and leaving its people to die,\u201d Castillo said.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via Common Dreams<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON – Registered nurse volunteers who recently returned from two weeks of providing nursing care and other disaster relief today joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress to call for increased aid to confront the ongoing humanitarian and health care crisis in Puerto Rico. The RNs, members of the Registered Nurse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":332246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-332245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}