PORTLAND – A week after drawing criticism with comments about Hurricane Katrina victims who were relocated from New Orleans to Texas, Barbara Bush on Wednesday focused on the nation’s outpouring of support for those in need.

During a groundbreaking ceremony at Maine Medical Center, Bush said Americans have shown compassion following the devastation of the hurricane. The United States isn’t perfect, she said, but the nation never stops trying to make life better for its citizens.

“If you don’t believe this, then look at the outpouring of care and money and comfort our great country has given to the victims of Hurricane Katrina,” she said.

Bush, the former first lady and mother of President George W. Bush, was criticized last week when she suggested that poor people at a relocation center in Houston were faring better than before the hurricane struck.

She drew attention after touring the Astrodome complex and commenting that evacuees who were moved there from New Orleans were saying they wanted to stay in Texas.

“Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality,” she said. “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

Mrs. Bush on Wednesday spoke at the groundbreaking of the new Women and Infants Building, a birthing center that is the centerpiece of a $120 million upgrade of Maine Medical Center.

The project also includes an expansion of the emergency department, a new helipad on an existing parking garage, a 512-vehicle parking garage and a central utilities plant.

The birthing center is expected to open in the summer of 2008, two years later than originally planned because of delays in the permitting process.

Barbara Bush and her husband, former president George H.W. Bush, attended the groundbreaking.