MIAMI — The U.S. military has halted flights carrying Haitian earthquake victims to the United States because of an apparent cost dispute, as a doctor warned that some injured patients faced imminent death if the flights don’t resume.
The evacuations were temporarily suspended Wednesday, said Capt. Kevin Aandahl, spokesman for U.S. Transportation Command. The flights were halted a day after Florida Gov. Charlie Crist asked the federal government to help pay for care.
Dr. Barth Green, part of the relief effort in Port-au-Prince, warned that his patients needed to get to better hospitals.
“We have 100 critically ill patients who will die in the next day or two if we don’t Medevac them,” said Green, chairman of the University of Miami’s Global Institute for Community Health and Development.
At a temporary hospital at an airport, set up with donations to Green’s institute, two men had died of tetanus. Doctors said 5-year-old Betina Joseph faced a similar fate within 24 hours unless she is evacuated.
The girl — infected with tetanus through a 2-inch cut on her thigh — weakly shooed a fly buzzing around her face as her mother caressed her corn rows, apparently unaware that getting the girl out could mean life or death.
“If we can’t save her by getting her out right away, we won’t save her,” said Dr. David Pitcher, one of 34 surgeons staffing the field hospital.
There were some states that would not accept patients who needed care in the U.S., and they could not be transported without a hospital to accept them, Aandahl said.
Aandahl declined to specify which states declined to accept patients, and he referred further questions to a Pentagon press office, where an after-hours answering service could not accept incoming messages Saturday.
In a letter Tuesday to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Crist said, “Florida’s health care system is quickly reaching saturation, especially in the area of high level trauma care.”
Crist asked Sebelius to activate the National Disaster Medical System, which is typically used in domestic disasters and pays for victims’ care. While in Tampa on Saturday, he said Florida’s Department of Children and Families estimated the state’s costs had reached about $7 million.
Numbers
$7 million Estimated cost to Florida so far in treating victims of the Haiti earthquake
526 Haitian patients who have been sent to Florida hospitals, including more than 400 in South Florida, 76 in the Orlando area and 37 in the Tampa area
100 Critically ill patients in Haiti who will die soon if they are not evacuated, according to Dr. Barth Green, who is involved in the relief effort
