Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Thursday 14 June 2018
Puerto Rico issues new data on Hurricane Maria deaths

By DANICA COTO government preparedness
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) and response," Judge
— Eight days after Hurricane Lauracelis Roques wrote in
Maria devastated Puerto her ruling.
Rico, Efrain Perez felt a pain The government on
in his chest. Tuesday requested more
Doctors near his small time to release all the
town sent him to Puerto death certificates, saying
Rico's main hospital for Social Security data had to
emergency surgery for an be redacted from 48,000
aortic aneurysm. But when individual documents. The
the ambulance pulled judge rejected the request
into the parking lot in the and the government
capital, San Juan, after a planned to announce its
more than two-hour drive, next steps later in the day.
a doctor ran out to stop it. Meanwhile, thousands
"He said, 'Don't bring him in of Puerto Ricans were
here, I can't care for him. I hoping the release of the
don't have power. I don't information will lead to their
have water. I don't have an loved ones being included
anesthesiologist,'" Perez's in the storm's toll, something
daughter, Nerybelle, they say will provide a
recalled. sense of closure and show
The 95-year-old Perez died Nerybelle Perez poses with a portrait of her father, World War II veteran Efrain Perez, who died the American public the
inside an ambulance after being turned away from the largest public hospital days after Hurricane
as the ambulance drove Maria passed, in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Thursday, June 7, 2018. true cost of the hurricane.
him back to southwestern Associated Press Until now, Perez has been
Puerto Rico but he is not "one of those who do not
included in the island's the fact that the federal Puerto Rico." showed increases in count," his daughter told
official hurricane death toll government and U.S. On Monday, two several illnesses in 2017 that The Associated Press. "That's
of 64 people, a figure at the states and territories have Democrats introduced could have been linked to a lie."
center of a growing legal no uniform definition of a bill to the Republican- the storm: Cases of sepsis, Lucila Pardo, 96, spent
and political fight over the what constitutes a storm- controlled Congress that a serious bloodstream nearly four months in a
response to the Category related death. The National would establish federal infection usually caused sweltering nursing home
4 storm that hit Puerto Rico Hurricane Center counts procedures for counting by bacteria, rose from 708 that did not have power
on Sept. 20, 2017. only deaths directly caused deaths after a natural in 2016 to 835 last year. and developed bed sores
Facing at least three by a storm, like a person disaster, saying that will Deaths from diabetes went by the time she was moved
lawsuits demanding more killed by a falling tree. It help improve the federal from 3,151 to 3,250 and in early January to another
data on the death toll, does not count indirect response and be key to deaths from heart illnesses home where electricity had
Puerto Rico's government deaths, like someone allocating federal funds. increased from 5,417 to been restored. By then, the
released new information whose medical equipment The $2 million proposed 5,586. sores had become infected
on Tuesday that added fails in a blackout. project would allow the The data was not broken and she was taken to a
detail to the growing Puerto Rico began by U.S. Federal Emergency down by month, preventing hospital where she spent
consensus that hundreds or counting mostly direct Management Agency to an analysis of whether the two weeks before dying of
even thousands of people deaths, with some hire the National Academy illnesses rose after Hurricane septicemia.
died as an indirect result of indirect ones. Then it of Medicine to do a study Maria. "That figure of 64 is a lack of
the storm. stopped updating its toll on how best to assess CNN and the Puerto Rico respect for those who died
According to the new data, entirely while it waits for fatalities during and after Center for Investigative from other consequences,"
there were 1,427 more the George Washington a disaster, given that the Journalism sued the Puerto said Pardo's granddaughter
deaths from September to University study, due later process is currently left up Rican government after Analid Nazario.
December 2017 than the this summer. to U.S. states and territories. it refused to release a "The hospital wrote a letter
average for the same time The death count has had "Nobody rebuilding his detailed accounting of apologizing," Nazario told
period over the previous political implications. or her life after a natural deaths in the wake of the the AP, adding that they
four years. Additionally, Visiting Puerto Rico on disaster should suffer the storm. On June 5, a judge were understaffed.
September and October Oct. 3, two weeks after the negligence we've seen gave the government A Harvard study published
had the highest number storm hit, President Donald in Puerto Rico," Rep. Raul until Tuesday to release a last month estimates
of deaths of any months Trump asked Gov. Ricardo Grijalva of Arizona said. database listing the causes there were as many as
since at least 2013. But Rossello what the death toll "Too many Puerto Rican of death of all those who 4,600 more deaths than
the statistics don't indicate was. families are suffering died from two days before usual in the three months
whether the storm and its "Sixteen," Rossello additional burdens today the storm until today, after Maria, although
aftermath contributed to answered. because officials won't along with all the death some independent
the additional deaths. "Sixteen people certified," acknowledge their loved certificates and burial and experts questioned the
The Puerto Rican Trump said. "Sixteen people ones' deaths. cremation certificates for methodology and the
government says it believes versus in the thousands. You Like Perez, thousands of sick the same period. numbers in that study. Still,
more than 64 people died can be very proud of all of Puerto Ricans were unable "People still don't have a previous studies have found
as a result of the storm but your people and all of our to receive medical care in clear picture as to how the number of direct and
it will not raise its official toll people working together. the months after the storm many lives were lost due to indirect hurricane-related
until George Washington Sixteen versus literally caused the worst blackout a lack of food, medicine, deaths is higher than the
University completes a thousands of people. in U.S. history, which health services or simply official toll, including a 2017
study of the data being You can be very proud. continues to this day, with because of an ineffective report that said there were
carried out on behalf of the Everybody watching can 6,983 home and businesses response to an emergency. nearly 500 more deaths
U.S. territory. really be very proud of still without power. That's why it's urgent to shed than usual on the island in
The issue is clouded by what's taken place in The data released Tuesday light on all components of September.q