JAN 20: "THEY'RE GONNA DIE" / CNN REPORTS MEDICAL AID IS URGENT WHILE SECURITY CONCERNS SLOW HELP

JAN 20
AC 360 on CNN
11:44 PM

ANDERSON COOPER In the courtyard of General Hospital the sick, the injured sit in the sun and wait. After the earthquake [aftershock] this morning the patients were brought here. The hospital building is fine but it will be hours before they can moved back in. It's hot, it's humid, the patients are quickly getting dehydrated

AC In terms of supplies what do you need?

DOCTOR E BENJAMIN We need everything needed for amputation, for taking care of trauma, for post op patient following infected type of surgery - antibiotics, medication to put people to sleep, to resuscitate them.

AC Haitian-American Doctors, Nurses and EMTS from the New York area arrived here on Monday. They are stunned by the lack of supplies.

DR MARNELL MOORE (Pediatrist from NJ) We don't have enough supplies. Tell him..we just [inaudible] amputation. You know what we are giving those patients for medication? Motrin!

NURSE EMANUELLE ALEXIS Motrin! Motrin, we are giving them with a bilateral amputation. We should be giving them [inaudible] morphine...

AC But all you have is Motrin.

AC The hours are long and the patients keep coming. The medical teams are under great stress. There are people here from all over the world but with supplies so low they feel they can't do their jobs.

DR. DAVID GRISWELL (Virginia Hospital Center) We've been here several days working and all these medical supplies and other equipment are sitting there at the tarmac at the airport and they're 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're 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.

EMANUELLE ALEXIS (Registered Nurse from NJ) That patient, you know, they are going to die regardless. That's really killing me. I take my whole week to come here to help, so whatever I'm doing is going to be like, you know nothing. Because when I leave they're going to be in the street. They don't have no place to go. They're gonna die. They're going to be sepsis. They're gonna die.

AC People are dying who don't really have to. People are dying and it has been more than a week.

ANDERSON COOPER Partners-In-Health put out a statement today saying they think 20,000 people are dying per day because they can't get the life saving surgery they need. The UN says look the numbers aren't that high but the UN didn't put forward any numbers. Even if its in the thousands still I mean people are dying.

SANJAY GUPTA And people who are getting operations are subsequently dying because there's nothing after that. There's no infrastructure for them to go to. There's no post-operative care, there's no ICU, they don't even have a home.

AC And its also like, with amputations, I understand you need a lot of follow on care, you need follow on surgeries even.

SG Many of these operations that are being performed, if they were performed back at my hospital in Atlanta for example, they would probably be in an ICU, they'd be getting IV drips, they'd be getting medications to stabilize their heart. They're not getting any of that. So its one of those things where you don't want to not try because that's the instinct to try and jump in and help. But I think these doctors are fully cognizant, without the follow up care, without any kind of resource to stabilize these patients afterward it's a little bit fruitless. And...and I think that's an extremely frustrating thing.

SG In your piece now, not having oxygen cannulas for patients who are having low oxygen levels...

AC That EMT was literally going around rummaging, he found an oxygen bottle somewhere buried in the old hospital. And they're giving motrin to people who have had their limbs taken off.

SG And they keeping saying international aid is here but these doctors keep saying we don't see it. We don't see it. I mean I..

AC At that hospital you have the 82nd Airborne is there now providing security but the scene outside there's just hundreds of people trying to get in, the needs are so great.

SG At that hospital and lots of other hospitals and first aid clinics right around here. I mean its certainly happening...but I still don't understand it. I simply can not understand it.

AC They say supplies are at the airport but all convoys need a security detail. Which I gotta say, this whole thing about security I think is overblown. Alot of the doctors I talked to thought it was overblown. Some of these doctors that have been here for years and years are living in neighborhoods, some of the Partners-In-Health guys live in neighborhoods and people's homes, they don't need security, they go around freely. 99.9% of the people of Port-Au-Prince are happy to see you, want you there. You don't feel threatened. I've never felt threatened at all even in the looting riot which I was in the middle of I felt other people's live were in danger, this little boy's life was in danger. I didn't feel personally threatened.

SG I saw these lines, people waiting for water - I mean you've seen the weather here, sweltering heat - patiently waiting no pushing, no shoving no armed guards. I haven't seen the violence that has derailed some kind of...

AC I think the idea that everyone needs a security detail to hand out food and water is a little overstated. I think its slowing things down. My opinion.