It’s hard to imagine a horrific situation like what we’ve seen in Haiti getting any worse, but it has. Yesterday doctors and nurses who flew in to help patients at a field hospital evacuated because of a UN report of security concerns (local rioting), leaving sick and injured (even post-operation) patients in the tents alone, without medication (taken away by the medical team). CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta stayed behind to care for these victims of the earthquake through the night.

 

He said the Belgian doctors did not want to leave their patients behind but were ordered out by the United Nations, which sent buses to transport them. “There is concern about riots not far from here — and this is part of the problem,” Gupta said. Video: Haitian hospitals lack basics Video: Health dangers from quake Video: Aid workers try to keep order.

“What is striking to me as a physician is that patients who just had surgery, patients who are critically ill are essentially being left here, nobody to care for them,” Gupta said.

Sandra Pierre, a Haitian who has been helping at the makeshift hospital, said the medical staff took most of the supplies with them.

“All the doctors, all the nurses are gone,” she said. “They are expected to be back tomorrow. They had no plan on leaving tonight. It was an order that came suddenly.”

She told Gupta, “It’s just you.”

From his Twitter account: