Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico on September 20th and the residents of the island remain in great need of assistance. Many months later the elderly receiving long term care assistance or in need of such care are among the most vulnerable in the wake of the disaster.
Over 16% of Puerto Rico’s population are elderly, 40% of them live at or below the poverty level. A high percentage compared to elderly on the mainland suffer from poor health conditions. The last thing the older residents of Puerto Rico needed was to be struck by multiple catastrophic hurricanes. They need and fully deserve more help than they have received even at this later date. The reporting done so far, including the recent New York Times article on people living in a senior housing project in San Juan, clearly shows that the Long Term care service system devastated by the hurricane is far from being restored. This means that many frail older people continue to be at great risk of not receiving the care they need to avoid unnecessary suffering and death. This fact should be getting far more attention in the national media and among policy makers than it is and a far more aggressive response from the federal government.
Important Articles
2017
- Sept. 29th | The Real Risks in Puerto Rico Have Only Just Begun (DirectRelief)
- Sept. 30th | Puerto Rico’s Elderly and Infirm Suffering Most (MSN)
- Oct. 1st | In One Puerto Rican Nursing Home, a Struggle to Get Power and Keep patients alive (LA Times)
- Oct. 3rd | Life or death as Puerto Rico’s older people go without essentials (The Guardian)
- Oct. 3rd | Puerto Ricans Must Take Elderly Relatives to the U.S., Senator Says (Newsweek)
- Oct. 4th | Puerto Rico Needs More Than Relief – It Needs Reconstruction (The Atlantic)
- Oct. 5th | Are We Doing Enough to Protect Sick, Elderly & Vulnerable Hurricane Survivors in Puerto Rico? (Rep. Luis Gutierrez)
- Oct. 6th | Relief Team In Puerto Rico Brings Aid and Comfort to Elderly (NBC)
- Oct. 6th | President Trump has no idea what’s happening in Puerto Rico (The Washington Post)
- Oct. 10th | Puerto Rico’s Health Care Is in Dire Condition, Three Weeks After Maria (The New York Times)
- Oct. 11th | Gutiérrez Calls For Evacuation Of Puerto Rico’s Sick, Elderly And Vulnerable (Rep. Luis Gutierrez)
- Oct. 11th | 4 Things Congress and the White House Could Do to Stop Puerto Rico’s Crisis From Getting Worse (Vox)
- Oct. 11th | The View from Puerto Rico – Hurricane Maria and Its Aftermath (The New England Journal of Medicine)
- Oct. 11th | FEMA Officials Say It’s Not Their Job to Distribute Food and Water to Hurricane Victims in Puerto Rico (The Root)
- Oct. 11th | Seniors in Puerto Rico Face Appalling Conditions After Hurricane Maria (US News)
- Oct. 17th | Raw Sewage Contaminating Water in Puerto Rico After Maria (CBS News)
- Oct. 17th | Congress, Remember Puerto Rico Needs Fair Medicaid Funding Too (The Hill)
- Oct. 21st | Weak Response Leaves Puerto Rico backsliding one month post-storm (MSNBC)
- Oct. 24th | Puerto Rico’s Elderly Caught in the Aftermath of Hurricane Maria (Association of Health Care Journalists)
- Oct. 24th | ‘Like Going Back in Time’: Puerto Ricans Put Survival Skills to Use (The New York Times)
- Oct. 25th | ‘We need your hands!’ Puerto Rico’s Elderly Face Rebuilding as the Young Flee (Miami Herald)
- Oct. 26th | Nurses Returning From Puerto Rico Accuse the Federal Government of Leaving People to Die (Vox)
- Nov. 7th | Seven Weeks After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans Still Can’t Access Programs that Fed Millions in Texas and Florida (WAPO)
- Nov. 8th | Puerto Rico Deaths Spike, but Few Are Attributed to Hurricane (The New York Times)
- Nov 9th | Six Weeks After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans Still Waiting for Help From FEMA (The Guardian)
- Nov 17th | Puerto Rico is still in the Dark (The Washington Post)
- Nov 20th | Trump Disaster Relief Doesn’t Address Any of Puerto Rico’s Medicaid Needs (CBPP)
- Nov. 26th | Ruined Infrastructure and a Refugee Crisis (Frontline India)
- Nov. 28th | Bernie Sanders Unveils Massive Puerto Rico Reconstruction Bill (Huffington Post)
- Dec. 8th | Voices from Puerto Rico: Reflections Two Months After Maria – Report (Kaiser Family Foundation)
- Dec. 10th | Lives at Risk Inside a Senior Complex in Puerto Rico With No Power (The New York Times)
- Dec. 13th | This is what Puerto Ricans need from the government. Right now. (The Washington Post)
- Dec. 14th | Bracing For Hurricanes: A Qualitative Analysis of the Extent and Level of Preparedness Among Older Adults (Gerontologist)
- Dec. 19th | Puerto Rico’s mental health crisis is an American disaster (Grist)
- Dec. 20th | Puerto Rico fears economic downturn from new tax overhaul (ABC News)
- Dec. 22nd | Maria’s Bodies (NYMag)
2018
- Jan. 4th | Inside a Suicide Prevention Center in Puerto Rico (The New York Times)
- Jan. 17th | In remote areas of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, volunteers are a lifeline (NBC News)
- Jan. 18th | Trump Administration Tells Puerto Rico It’s Too Rich for Aid Money (The Intercept)
- Jan. 28th | Puerto Rico’s New Power Struggle: Privatization (Naked Capitalism)
- Jan. 29th | How Washington sealed Puerto Rico’s fate (Harper’s Magazine)
- Jan. 30th | Everything Trump didn’t say about Puerto Rico during his State of the Union address (Vox)
- Feb. 21st | Citigroup Drove Puerto Rico Into Debt. Now it Will Profit From Privatization on the Island (The Intercept)
- Mar. 2nd | Bernie Sanders: “Do you think this would be happening in Westchester county?” (The Intercept)
- Mar. 6th | Exodus from Puerto Rico grows as island struggles to rebound from Hurricane Maria (The Washington Post)
- Mar. 20th | Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One House at a Time (The New York Times)
- Mar. 20th | Puerto Ricans and Ultrarich “Puertopians” are locked in a pitched struggle over how to remake the island (The Intercept)
- Mar. 22nd | ‘The Battle for Paradise’: Naomi Klein on Disaster Capitalism & the Fight for Puerto Rico’s Future (Alternet)
- Mar. 27th | How Trump favored Texas over Puerto Rico (Politico)
- Mar. 30th | A Bittersweet Journey Back to Puerto Rico After Maria (The New York Times)
- Mar. 30th | Time’s Running Out For Many Frail, Older People In Puerto Rico (NPR)
- Apr. 13th | Puerto Rico’s Slow-Going Recovery Means New Hardship For Dialysis Patients (Kaiser Health News)
- Apr. 26th | Can Puerto Rico Recover From Maria Before the Next Storm Hits? (The Atlantic)
- Apr. 28th | Sluggish recovery from Hurricane Maria reignites calls for Puerto Rico’s statehood, independence (The Washington Post)
- Apr. 30th | Even Before Hurricane Maria Hit, Puerto Rico Was In Financial Ruin (NPR)
- May 2nd | How Puerto Rico’s Debt Created A Perfect Storm Before The Storm (NPR)
- May 30th | Trump’s Human Toll (Slate)
- May 31st | The Real Cost of Trump’s Negligence in Puerto Rico (Pacific Standard)
- June 6th | Naomi Klein: 4,645 Deaths in Puerto Rico From Hurricane Maria Were “State-Sponsored Mass Killing” (Truthout)
- June 11th | ‘It Should Have Been a Day of Mourning’: One Activist on Sitting Out the Puerto Rican Day Parade (Rolling Stone)
- June 14th | FEMA Blamed Delays In Puerto Rico On Maria; Agency Records Tell Another Story (NPR)
- June 28th | Puerto Rico’s New Fiscal Plan: Certain Pain, Uncertain Gain (Portside)
- July 11th | Amid new hurricane season, Maria still taking a toll on Puerto Rico’s elderly (PBS)
- Aug. 15th | It took 11 months to restore power to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. A similar crisis could happen again (Vox)
- Aug 29th | San Juan mayor rips Trump for ‘neglect’ of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria (USA Today)
- Aug. 29th | Trump: We did a “fantastic job” handling the Puerto Rico hurricane that killed 3,000 (Vox)
- Aug. 29th | If 9/11 Attacks Can Spark Trillions in War Spending, Why Can’t US Find Funding for Puerto Rico ‘Marshall Plan’? (Alternet)
- Aug. 29th | Trump Claims ‘We Did a Fantastic Job in Puerto Rico’ (The New York Times)
- Sept. 13th | Donald Trump is right: Hurricane Maria was an incredible success — for disaster capitalism (Salon)
- Sept. 15h | What we know about the death toll in Puerto Rico (Vox)
- Sept. 16th | FEMA Head Blames Hurricane Deaths in Puerto Rico on ‘Spousal Abuse’ (Alternet)
- Sept. 19th | Fighting for Vietnam: Puerto Rico braces for redevelopment (USA Today)
- Sept. 20th | Why the Lights Went Out in Puerto Rico (Public Books)
- Sept. 20th | A year after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico still struggles to regain what hasn’t been lost for good (Los Angeles Times)
- Sept. 20th | Puerto Rico’s Unnatural Disaster Rolls on Into Year Two (Counterpunch)
- Sept. 21st | Disaster Capitalism Strikes Puerto Rico (Public Books)
- Dec. 12th | Puerto Rico’s War on Its Poor (Boston Review)
2019
- Apr. 15th | With Hurricane Season Looming, Billions in Disaster Recovery for Puerto Rico Remain Unspent (The American Prospect)
- May. 21st | Medicaid Financing Cliff: Implications for the Health Care Systems in Puerto Rico and USVI (KFF)
- May. 31st | The Scandal of Puerto Rico’s Botched Disaster Relief (Portside)
- July. 16th | Puerto Rico’s Privatizers Are Finally Getting What They Deserve (Portside)
- July. 19th | Puerto Rico Rises (Portside)
- July. 25th | The Frustration Behind Puerto Rico’s Popular Movement (The New Yorker)
- July. 25th | Puerto Rico Was Ready (The Baffler)
- Sept. 12th | The Disappearing Schools of Puerto Rico
- Sept. 23rd | Two Years After the Hurricane, Puerto Rico’s “Generation Maria” Leads a Climate Strike (Portside)