Investigative Reporter Omaya Sosa Pasqual, has published a piece on her blog about the rising death rates in PR. The number of dead is so much higher than the official count according to multiple sources on the island. The Miami Herald republished the article in full. Below is an excerpt.
Donald Trump is a monster. He golfs while Puerto Rico literally dies. Where are the marines and the navy?
The dead are at the hospital morgues, which are at capacity and in remote places where the Government has yet to go, and in many cases, their families are unaware of the deaths. The Demographic Registry certifies the deaths so bodies can be removed by funeral homes, many of which are also not operating for a lack of resources and fuel. They barely began certifying some of the dead on Monday, as Health Secretary Rafael Rodríguez-Mercado confirmed in an interview.
Public Safety Secretary Héctor Pesquera told the CPI that the names of the dead due to the hurricane will not be revealed, as the lack of communication has kept many people from knowing the whereabouts of their families. Since the hurricane, many people have gone daily to radio stations so that the on-air personalities can say the names of family members with whom they have been unable to communicate in a desperate attempt to find them.
A week after María’s passage, the Government of Puerto Rico is trying with great difficulty to supply basic services, such as fuel, roads and communications and tells the world every day of the progress of these efforts through their press conferences at the Emergency Operations Center (COE, for its initials in Spanish) established in San Juan. But the fact that is not discussed is that the number of deaths resulting from the disaster are much higher than the 16 or 19 that have been offered as the official tally.
CPI sources in half a dozen hospitals said those bodies are piling up at the morgues of the 69 hospitals in Puerto Rico, of which 70% are not operating. The majority of the hospital morgues that provided information including Doctor’s Center in Bayamón and Santurce, Pavía Hospital in Santurce, the Manatí Medical Center, Dr. Pila in Ponce, the Río Piedras Medical Center, the Mayagüez Medical Center and the HIMA hospitals in Caguas and Bayamón, are at full capacity. Those hospitals are among the 18 that are partially operational.
Furthermore, this media outlet learned that the Institute of Forensic Sciences is also full of bodies and that allegedly 25 of those are hurricane victims. On Tuesday, the IFS informed that it had increased its storage capacity for bodies with a trailer that was obtained through DMORT federal program.
It’s unclear what is happening with the deceased that are at the morgues of the 51 hospitals that have had to close their doors, with which it has been impossible to communicate.