[StBernard] Nurses Ask: Does New Orleans Suffer From PTSD?

[Westley Annis]

Nurses Ask: Does New Orleans Suffer From PTSD?

NEW ORLEANS, May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Citing the development of a number of
worrying and long-term trends among the patient and caregiver population of
post-Katrina New Orleans, registered nurses from a wide variety of clinical
settings will report on the severe challenges they face delivering care in
their communities. The RNs will be sounding this public health alert as part
of a day-long seminar sponsored by the Registered Nurse Response Network,
(RNRN), a national organization with 4,000 members which was born in the
aftermath of the Gulf region devastation.

The 
six registered nurses on the panel (participants' bios at end of release),
and many colleagues at the seminar, lived disaster nursing on the front
lines during the acute phases of the hurricane, and have continued to serve
the patient populations in New Orleans. They report ongoing mental health
stresses among all levels of the population, severe fatigue setting in among
caregivers, a healthcare system that continues to be ignored by politicians
in Baton Rouge and Washington -- all resulting in a city that is
demonstrating widespread mental and emotional disorders similar to PTSD and
a variety of complicating physical issues.

In short: New Orleans is getting sicker, fast.

With the city down 1,000 beds, 6,000 caregivers, and seven hospitals, people
not seeking care until they are acutely ill, and the rate of uninsured
already at a nation-wide high and continuing to skyrocket, these nurses find
themselves delivering care to a sicker population in a variety of new
settings with fewer resources.

WHAT: The Post-Katrina Healthcare Challenge: The Voices of Local Katrina
Nurse Veterans WHERE: Courtyard-New Orleans Downtown WHEN: Monday, May 7
2:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Media Availability 

"This experience has given me great insight, incurred at great cost," said
Celeste Lewis, an RN who works at River Oaks Psychiatric Hospital,
volunteers at St. Anna's Parish clinic, and helped to evacuate 72 unstable
psychiatric patients to Memphis. We face a tremendous challenge now with a
greater need for inpatient and outpatient mental health services, an
increase in the number of people suffering depression as a result of their
loss, the devastation that surrounds them, and a deficit of 300 psychiatric
hospital beds. The nurses and doctors who worked through the storm and have
continued on with no counseling or support systems are on a delayed
response. A nurse recruiter told me that nurses in hospitals were breaking
down in tears during last summer's hurricane season.

"We are seeing an increased number of children with asthma from living in
FEMA trailers that have mold and are cold in the winter and blazing hot in
the summer, said Laurie McInnis, a St. Bernard Parish native and RN who is
the nurse coordinator responsible for the health and well-being of over
4,000 St. Bernard students, ranging from preschool to high school. "Our
local hospital, Chalmette Medical Center, closed, the nearest hospital is
now 40 minutes away, and the closest health facility is a clinic and urgent
care center run by the Franciscans, located in a Wal-Mart parking lot that
closes at 8:00 pm. Pre-Katrina there were 25 dentists and 10 pediatricians
who took Medicare; today there are none."

"The remaining nine hospitals in the area have minimal services with a
shortage of beds and are understaffed, and overloaded with too many
patients," said Charles Jarreau, an RN who worked the five days of the storm
at the now-closed Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans and currently works
in an outpatient surgery center that treats many forms of cancer. "We have
lost many of our premier hospitals and diagnostic centers specializing in
cancers. The few facilities that have re-opened are struggling. Cancer
patients don't feel safe with their treatment options and have re-located to
places like Baton Rouge and Houston."

Monday's event is the last in an initial series of 16 classes that RNRN, a
project of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing
Committee, has offered this year, which started in Houston and ends in New
Orleans. The course is titled "RN Social Advocacy for Healthcare and
Disaster Preparedness Response: Building a Powerful RN Response Network."

CNA/NNOC's RN Katrina Relief Effort

CNA/NNOC sent more than 300 nurses to 25 hospitals, clinics, and mobile
units in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi in response to the 2005
hurricanes, including a group of 50 RNs that arrived at the Houston
Astrodome in the first few weeks. The organization provided half of the RN
staff at Earl K. Long Memorial Hospital in Baton Rouge, La., for the two
months after Katrina when patient rolls doubled.

"We were so frustrated because both private and public agencies were
overwhelmed and immobilized while we had nurses across the country ready and
able to fly into the breach to help," said Bonnie Martin, RN, Nurse
Practioner, from Lodi, Calif., who volunteered in a small Louisiana hospital
last fall. "We contacted hospital and medical facilities directly and were
quickly able to get RNs in place."

RNRN is designed to provide support and coordination for volunteer nurses
when disaster strikes, allowing RNs to focus on providing patient care. RNRN
arranges airfare, lodging, and meals for all volunteers, and works with
federal and state agencies to resolve issues of medical credentials and
licenses for out-of-state nurse volunteers.

To find out more about the RN Response Network, visit
http://www.rnresponsenetwork.org/. RNRN is a project of the California
Nurses Foundation and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses
Organizing Committee.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee is
the fastest growing professional RN organization in the nation representing
over 75,000 direct-care registered nurses in 170 facilities. RNRN is a
program of the CNA/NNOC.

The Post-Katrina Healthcare Challenge: The Voices of Local Katrina Nurse
Veterans Panel Participants Celeste Lewis, RN Pre-Katrina: River Oaks
Psychiatric Hospital Post Katrina: River Oaks and St. Anna Episcopal
Church's Medical Mission 

Leaving, home, family, and friends on the Saturday before the storm, she
evacuated and cared for 72 unstable psychiatric hospital patients in a
sister facility of River Oaks located in Memphis. A New Orleans native, she
continues to work at River Oaks, one of the few psychiatric inpatient units
remaining in NOLA. She is in school to become a family Nurse Practioner and
volunteers at St. Anna Episcopal Church's Medical Mission, assisting the
Parish Nurse/Disaster Relief Coordinator.

"New Orleans is not a comfortable place to live. It is a frustrating and
isolating place. I have lost so many friends, basic services don't exist.
Not a day passes that it doesn't cross my mind to leave. But this is my home
and I have a tremendous commitment to doing my part in re-building a new and
better New Orleans."

Kim Lange, RN Pre-Katrina: Lindy Boggs Medical Center Post-Katrina: McDonogh
High School Clinic 

A New Orleans native, she worked at Lindy Boggs Medical Center, a mid-size
neighborhood hospital owned by Tenet Healthcare and now closed. She
evacuated to Texas with her family, but returned as soon as the city was
reopened. She now works as a school nurse in a make-shift clinic with no
exam table located in a science lab at McDonogh High School adjacent to the
French Quarter. She sees up to 150 students a week but can only do physical
exams once a week when St. Anna's lends them their mobile clinic. Kim also
works with kids who have never been reunited with their parents since the
storm and are living in FEMA trailers, often several children to a trailer.

"Nurses and doctors are caught in the middle, being both victims of the
storm and caregivers to victims. We are faced with a myriad of challenges
both professionally and personally, and as nurses we never say no. If we
can't provide a service we'll find someone who can. That is proving harder
and harder to do."

Alice Craft-Kerney, RN and Pat Berryhill RN Pre-Katrina: Charity Hospital
Post-Katrina: Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic 

The Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic was Pat Berryhill's home for nearly three
decades until Hurricane Katrina sent flood water to its ceiling. Now, as the
sign in the front reads, it is "Your Medical Home." Alice, who worked at
Charity Hospital for 20 years, was flooded out of her home in eastern New
Orleans and now is living in a FEMA trailer in the Lower 9th. The clinic --
which has paid staff and volunteers -- operates strictly on donations and is
partnering with St. Margaret's Daughters, California Nurses Association,
AARP, Tulane's New Orleans Children's Health Project, and others. The Common
Ground Lower 9th Ward Project was instrumental in the clinic's formation.

"The uninsured are getting discharged prematurely from private hospitals.
People don't have access to their medications for chronic diseases -- high
blood pressure, thyroid condition, and diabetes leading to more serious
complications. We need Charity Hospital."

Charles Jarreau, RN Pre-Katrina: Memorial Medical Center Post-Katrina: New
Orleans Gamma Knife and PET Center 

A Baton Rouge native, Charles worked the five days of the storm in the
intensive care unit at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, which is now
closed. Post-Katrina, Charles has become active in the American Cancer
Society, volunteering at the Hope Lodge, a free hotel available to cancer
patients and their families to stay during treatment.

Laurie McInnis, RN Pre-Katrina: Home Health Nurse, St. Bernard Parish
Post-Katrina: St. Bernard School Parish 

A St. Bernard Parish native, Laurie evacuated to Baton Rouge with her family
where she resided for ten months. Upon returning home, she found St.
Bernard's population had plummeted from 100,000 to 25,000 which included
most of the elderly residents she had worked with as a home health RN since
1991. Her husband, a coach and teacher at the local high school, discovered
the need for a school nurse, where she has worked for the last year
providing care for over 4,000 students crowded into two schools.

Anne Mull, RN, FNP Pre-Katrina: University of Ca., S.F. Family Nurse
Practioner Post-Katrina: Common Ground Health Clinic, Algiers 

Hailing from Berkeley, Calif., Anne signed on to CNA/NNOC's Katrina disaster
relief effort in September 2005 and spent a week helping to staff the
emergency department of Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge. She
accompanied several other California RNs working at Earl K. Long to New
Orleans before it was officially reopened to find out where there was a need
for RNs. She began working as a volunteer nurse at the Common Ground Health
Clinic in Algiers where she now works as a family nurse practioner.


"We see 40 to 50 patients a day and don't take appointments so every morning
there is a line of patients outside the clinic door waiting to be seen. The
section of Algiers we are in is mostly poor and mostly black. The community
has been underserved by accessible healthcare for years -- only a
maternal/newborn clinic has been functioning. With the closure of Charity
Hospital, there is virtually nowhere to refer our clinic patients who need
diagnostic services or specialty care." 

Source: RN Response Network