24 Young La. Patients Flown to Kansas City

[deminks]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Twenty-four young patients from a hospital in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have been brought to Kansas City, flown in Wednesday night on two Missouri Air National Guard transport planes.

Children's Mercy Hospital of Kansas City agreed to take the patients, sending a team to New Orleans earlier Wednesday to start arranging the transfer from that city's Children's Hospital. The two hospitals are not affiliated, but Randall O'Donnell, chief executive officer of the Kansas City facility, is a longtime friend of his New Orleans counterpart and offered to do whatever was needed to help.

Tom McCormally, a spokesman for the Kansas City hospital, said the New Orleans hospital called Wednesday asking for accommodations as quickly as possible for patients and their families.

"They said not tomorrow, it needs to be today," McCormally said. "They were really anxious to get the children out of there to someplace safe and dry, away from the chaos."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hurricane_katrina_kids_hk4

I am so glad the children and families are safe, but again, where were the plans? Where was the federal government? Is it every man and hospital for themselves?