who said the staff refused to let her use her wheelchair, claiming they wouldn t let me get out of the bed or nothing. another caller said he s at the warehouse and he s a stroke patient and he is laying on the floor and he s being treated poorly. two nurses at the facility told cnn evacuees were crammed into the warehouse, on cots and air mat ress on the floor. they said some were caught in knee high water after a smaller building on the site flooded. and with limited electricity from a generator, switching between powering lights, air-conditioning and wall outlets, the facility was plunged into darkness in the hot, humid conditions. the louisiana department of health said inspectors were sent to the warehouse last week after being notified of the inadequate conditions but they were, quote, expelled from the property. and stopped from conducting a full assessment. one nurse tells cnn we were put in a situation that we did not know, but we handled it. loved ones want answers.
anybody for help? let somebody know what was going on. contact one person. people shouldn t be treated like that. you should be held accountable. reporter: what we do know is actually there were a number of 911 calls, about 63 of them that cnn has learned. we don t have the actual calls, but we have the read outs. here s a spam plg of what was said. one caller requesting transport for a diabetic patient who had not eaten due to them not having supplies. another dispatcher took a call from 66-year-old debbie strickland who thought she was kidnapped. she said the staff wouldn t let her use the wheelchair, they wouldn t help me get out of bed or nothing. another caller said he was at a warehouse, he s a stroke patient. he s lying on the floor, he s being treated poorly. other callers talked about people having trouble breathing. one call reported a person had stopped breathing. we know that on tuesday after the storm, the health department sent an investigator to that warehouse to figur
rationing care in some respects. we do this every day when there is just not enough supply of personnel and equipment and beds, we can t care for everyone. that s a really challenging situation that we are in rate now. the challenge we have a short time. i want to first dr. gupta, what does that mean for somebody who let s say breaks an arm or leg or gets a heart attack or has a stroke who is going to be prioritized right now in the er? is it go him to be that stroke patient, cancer patient or these people coming in for covid? is that the decision that it s going to come down to? bottom line, joy, in most zip code, it s sickness, acuity of illness and critical care or not. in that the problem there is largely those people are unvaccinated coming into the studio with covid. this the about human resources for help. we have been reckoning with lack of healthcare access for millions of americans. part is policy, part is human
warehouse. this is where seven nursing homes evacuated about 800 to 840 of their senior citizens and placed them in a warehouse about an hour north of new orleans. that was before the storm. a nursing home and a warehouse are two very different things. and shortly after those people got into that nursing home, you realize that the suffering was very prevalent. and some of the calls that were coming in to 9-1-1 from those people read like this. patient gasping, having trouble breathing. person that s having seizures, diabetic patient has not eaten due to not having any supplies. stroke patient lying on the floor. there were other reports of deaths. seven deaths have been attributed to seniors being left in a warehouse. it is just awful to think about. meantime it s been more than a week now since that storm hit. i know we see you in the rain there, hear a little thunder in the background. but you re also dealing with a