Helping the children of Haiti

January 15, 2010

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With an untold number of injured children in Haiti and hospitals there damaged or destroyed, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson wants Florida’s children’s hospitals poised to receive the youngest of the earthquake victims.

In a letter today to the heads of 13 children’s hospitals in his home state, Nelson wrote to ask “for your support as we come together as a community to help the children of Haiti suffering from this unprecedented disaster.”

With Haiti already asking for assistance in evacuating a small number of patients from damaged hospitals to facilities in Miami, Nelson says he wants to make sure the children of this disaster get the medical attention they need. 

That’s why he’s separately asked the federal Department of Health and Human Services if under the National Disaster Medical System they should begin identifying children’s hospitals in Florida and elsewhere that could receive patients from Haiti.

Nelson will be at Jackson Memorial in Miami-Dade County this afternoon, where they have already begun receiving children who were injured in Haiti.  

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