Federal health officials in the U.S. are defending themselves against criticism that the government was not prepared to deal with disaster left by Hurricane Katrina.
Despite how it may have appeared to those suffering the dire consequences of the disaster, health experts on the ground are also saying they had not been caught by surprise.
They say that some teams arrived a day before Katrina hit the Gulf coast and that preparations began a week in advance.
They say that field hospitals have been installed across the Southeast and have already processed thousands of patients.
Health officials are apparently stepping up efforts not only to provide for the immediate needs of refugees, but to fill in the gap for health systems destroyed in the storm or overwhelmed by thousands of evacuees.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , is reported to have said that although they knew the hurricane was coming they had no idea of the damage it would do.
She believes hospitals did what they could to be prepared but it was difficult to prepare for something of this scope and in particular the flooding in New Orleans.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt said access into the city was difficult because of the flooding and because of shooting and looting.
Security issues that have been widely reported, made it more difficult to establish a foothold at the convention center and the Superdome but people nevertheless received remarkable care, under the circumstances, he says.
Surgeon-General Dr. Richard Carmona, says centers are up and running, and he has seen a metropolitan hospital where patients were not only receiving care, but receiving the social services that they needed.
Leavitt says 1,000 hospital beds have been set up in the New Orleans area and 8,000 professionally qualified health-care volunteers have signed up on HHS's tollfree telephone line.