美国国家公共电台 NPR In The U.S. Virgin Islands, Health Care Remains In A Critical State

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

It's been many months since hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the Virgin¹ Islands, but hospitals there are still recovering. Even now, patients are being flown to the U.S. mainland for certain surgeries and specialized² care, as NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE³: There's just one hospital serving some 55,000 residents of St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands - Schneider Regional Medical Center. Only about a third of the hospital's beds are available for patient care because of damage from Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria. Darryl Smalls is hospital vice⁴ president.

DARRYL SMALLS: Where we're walking right now, during the height of the storm, you literally⁵ had winds of 175, 180 miles an hour whipping through here.

ALLEN: Right through here because you lost a window.

SMALLS: A window on this side.

ALLEN: The nursing station is in shambles⁶. Ceiling panels are gone. Exposed pipes and ducts are damaged and sagging⁷ in places. A large plywood barrier now covers the window opening. On Sept. 5, when Hurricane Irma hit the Virgin Islands, Smalls and most of the staff were on duty. When the window blew out, he says they worked quickly to evacuate⁸ some 20 patients to a safer part of the hospital.

SMALLS: We literally had to put the patients on the mattresses⁹. Four people slid them down the stairs, down to the third floor, across the building and up onto the other side. And when I say the other side, we have a surgical¹⁰ unit which was not compromised and capable of handling patient care.

ALLEN: All of the patients here during the storm were eventually evacuated¹¹ off the island. The hospital remained open even as staff dealt with a host of problems. Smalls takes me to the emergency room, which flooded badly from a leaky roof.

SMALLS: You probably had about three to four inches of water on the floor in here. I've had pumps. I think we probably had about 50 people in here at any given time, just trying to evacuate as much water out of the facility.

ALLEN: Five months later, the hospital continues to provide surgery, labor¹² and delivery care, radiology and lab services. But its cancer center - a $28 million facility - remains¹³ closed because of extensive storm damage. The hospital also now is providing only limited services for patients requiring dialysis. Hospital CEO Bernard Wheatley says most patients evacuated because of the hurricanes have not been able to return to the island because adequate medical services aren't available.

BERNARD WHEATLEY: It's over 400 that has been transferred off island. And to this day, we're still transferring some patients, especially the ones that require extensive length of stay.

ALLEN: Wheatley says it's a similar situation for the Virgin Islands' other hospital located on St. Croix. It suffered even more extensive damage to its operating rooms. Along with a lack of facilities, another major problem is staffing. Wheatley says he's lost 150 of the hospital's 600 employees, many because their homes were destroyed, and they've left the island.

WHEATLEY: The sad part of it - we've lost a lot of nurses. If you ask me right now, what's my key entity¹⁴ in terms of shortage from a clinical standpoint? - would be the nursing staff.

SHANIQUE WOODS-BOSCHULTE: Every day, we get one or two resignations.

ALLEN: Shanique Woods-Boschulte directs the hospital's foundation. She says after five months, the daily struggle is wearing down many staff members.

WOODS-BOSCHULTE: The morale¹⁵ was really high after the storm because we saw what we were able to accomplish. No patient hurt. But now things are trickling¹⁶ down. And everyone is, you know, leaving a broken hospital and then going home to a broken home.

ALLEN: Adding to the woes¹⁷, the hospital is in desperate financial straits. Revenues are half of what they were because there are far fewer patients. The government supported hospitals projecting a $7 million loss. With all the competing problems on the islands, CEO Bernard Wheatley says it's not clear how much help the local government can provide.

WHEATLEY: The territory itself is projecting a $400 million loss. They don't have the hotel rooms. Tourism is down. It's just not the same island.

ALLEN: The Virgin Islands now is trying to decide what to do about its battered¹⁸ hospitals and is looking to Congress for help. The local government is in talks with FEMA and the Army Corps¹⁹ of Engineers to determine whether the hospitals can be rehabilitated²⁰ or if new facilities will be needed.

Greg Allen, NPR News, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

1 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

2 specialized   

adj.专门的，专业化的

参考例句：

• There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
• These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 shambles   

n.混乱之处；废墟

参考例句：

• My room is a shambles.我房间里乱七八糟。
• The fighting reduced the city to a shambles.这场战斗使这座城市成了一片废墟。

7 sagging   

下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is continuously sagging. 敌军的士气不断低落。
• We are sagging south. 我们的船正离开航线向南漂流。

8 evacuate   

v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便

参考例句：

• We must evacuate those soldiers at once!我们必须立即撤出这些士兵！
• They were planning to evacuate the seventy American officials still in the country.他们正计划转移仍滞留在该国的70名美国官员。

9 mattresses   

褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The straw mattresses are airing there. 草垫子正在那里晾着。
• The researchers tested more than 20 mattresses of various materials. 研究人员试验了二十多个不同材料的床垫。

10 surgical   

adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的

参考例句：

• He performs the surgical operations at the Red Cross Hospital.他在红十字会医院做外科手术。
• All surgical instruments must be sterilised before use.所有的外科手术器械在使用之前，必须消毒。

11 evacuated   

撤退者的

参考例句：

• Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
• The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。

12 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

13 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

14 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。

15 morale   

n.道德准则，士气，斗志

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is sinking lower every day.敌军的士气日益低落。
• He tried to bolster up their morale.他尽力鼓舞他们的士气。

16 trickling   

n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动

参考例句：

• Tears were trickling down her cheeks. 眼泪顺着她的面颊流了下来。
• The engine was trickling oil. 发动机在滴油。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 woes   

困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉

参考例句：

• Thanks for listening to my woes. 谢谢您听我诉说不幸的遭遇。
• She has cried the blues about its financial woes. 对于经济的困难她叫苦不迭。

18 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

19 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

20 rehabilitated   

改造（罪犯等）( rehabilitate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使恢复正常生活； 使恢复原状； 修复

参考例句：

• He has been rehabilitated in public esteem. 公众已恢复对他的敬重。
• Young persons need to be, wherever possible, rehabilitated rather than punished. 未成年人需要受到尽可能的矫正而不是惩罚。