It's already troubling enough that sufficient aid to Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria was terribly delayed, but now there are reports of what appears to be exploitation of its residents.

According to MSNBC, federal disaster relief staff members were allegedly caught treating themselves to a spa day instead of working to save live. They held their spa day in emergency triage tents set up to help sick Puerto Ricans. And not only that; they allegedly brought in Puerto Rican workers to give them the spa treatments using taxpayer funds.

Photo: GIPHY

A doctor working in Puerto Rico who is a veteran of disasters blew the whistle on this behavior, writing in her letter of resignation that she couldn't stand by and watch as Americans died, starved and scrounged around for water while those that were being paid to help them gave themselves a day off, and used resources meant to service the people to take from them.

Per the doctor's resignation letter, the staffers “used the triage tents that are supposed to be for medical care and instead brought in local Puerto Rican residents to give the medical workers cut-rate manicures and pedicures.”

In the tents, which are supposed to be sterile so sick people don't get sepsis, photographs sent in to Rachel Maddow's show show federal employees walking around in flipflops drying their toenails.

“I find this gross misuse of taxpayer funds and abuse of our privileged positions personally abhorrent,” she wrote, adding that the "optics of NDMS medical personnel responsible for seeing injured and ill Puerto Ricans who have no homes, food or supplies having a spa day on taxpayer money" alone should be enough to upset her bosses and the American people.

The Department of Health and Human Services told MSNBC that it has raised an official "inquiry regarding the matter." 

While they do that, Puerto Ricans continue to die, now, according to Maddow, of preventable diseases spread through contaminated drinking water.

The official death toll is now at 45. Vox reports that after conducting its own investigation, it believes the death toll is actually more like 450.

PBS NewsHour reports that 80 percent of Puerto Rico is still without power. 63 percent of cell phone towers are still down. 40 percent of Puerto Ricans still have no access to drinking water, safe or unsafe. Raw sewage has begun to contaminate the drinking water in several places. 6,000 people remain completely homeless.

Meanwhile, apparently, there are spa days, as the territory's president sends it mixed messages:

Disaster-Reliefhurricane mariaHurricane ReliefNational Disaster Medical SystemPuerto RicoRace in americaspa day