Top 16 Quotes by Sheri Fink

It remains to be seen the extent to which the critical needs of seniors in low income high rises, people with home medical needs and those with disabilities have been adequately planned for and met during widespread power outages. I fear the answers.

If you ever face a significant disaster, do your best to keep up the spirits of those around you, act flexibly and creatively to help, try to sort rumors from truth, and remember that the decisions you make will have repercussions after the disaster has passed.

Be an advocate for your loved ones in the hospital. Ask tough questions of your local hospital and health system about preparedness for the likeliest emergencies, and express your views on how medical resources should be allocated in case they ever fall short.

While Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the dangers of failing to evacuate hospitals from the path of a storm, Hurricane Gustav demonstrated that moving thousands of sick people has its own risks. Gustav also highlighted a critical vulnerability of American hospitals - an inability to withstand prolonged blackouts.

It is human nature to be shortsighted and to lose momentum to make changes once the story is out of the headlines and there aren't financial incentives or political rewards. We owe to ourselves to learn from the past so we can try to do better.

When Katrina struck in 2005, roughly 300 deaths were recorded at hospitals, long-term care facilities and in nursing homes, according to a recently published study of death certificates and disaster mortuary team records. Many of them might have been saved if they had been evacuated sooner.