A Tale Of Two Hopitals...

Don't blame me, I blog it as I see. Tulane is a private hospital, they've been resupplied and evacuated. Charity is New Orleans's public hospital, right next door to Tulane, and still they wait, for supplies, for evacuation... for someone to care? What do YOU think is happening here?

--ryan



Hospital Gets Help, Another Waits
Associated Press
September 3, 2005 KNOT0903



Evacuations resumed Friday at some of New Orleans' most troubled hospitals, where desperate doctors were being forced to choose which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and medicines.
Rescuers finally made it into Charity Hospital, the city's largest public hospital and trauma center, where gunshots prevented efforts Thursday to evacuate more than 250 patients.

"We moved all of the babies out of Charity this morning," said Keith Simon, spokesman for Acadian Ambulance Service Inc.
"Our morgue at Big Charity is full and it is under water," said Don Smithburg, CEO of the LSU hospital system, which oversees the two public hospitals. He said the morgue had 12 bodies, and another five were stacked in a stairwell. More bodies were in other parts of the hospital.

As for the doctors and nurses, "some of them are on the brink of [being] unable to cope any longer. We just can't get our people out fast enough," he said.

"Some of my staff are giving each other intravenous fluids," Smithburg said.

Emergency radio communications have been lost with University Hospital, where about 500 family and staff members and 110 very ill patients and hundreds of others from the general community need to be moved.


Airlines step up

The nation's airlines, temporarily unable to provide commercial service to New Orleans, have been putting aside their own financial troubles to fly in supplies and bring out refugees.

Relief flights arrived at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at a rate of about four an hour Friday.

The flights started a day after Delta executives piloted a plane that dropped off supplies at New Orleans' main airport and returned with 140 refugees on board. United Airlines, meanwhile, flew 24,000 pounds of food and water and 30 medical technicians to New Orleans and returned with 104 evacuees.

More than a dozen passenger airlines were part of the evacuation effort. Hundreds of private pilots are also offering assistance.


Water removal slow

New Orleans could be facing at least a month, possibly much more, before all the floodwater can be pumped out.

Lowering the water level a foot per day was called an optimistic estimate Friday, depending on how much of the pumping capacity can be restored and whether any more storms complicate the work.
Dan Craig, director of recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told foreign diplomats invited to a State Department briefing that it could take up to six months to get the water out of New Orleans, and the city then would need to dry out, which could take up to three more months.

After the drying-out period, debris and other hazardous material would need to be cleared away before rebuilding can begin.

Craig said evacuees who are eligible could remain in housing arranged and paid for by the government for 18 to 24 months. An account of Craig's briefing was provided by a FEMA spokeswoman, Jamie Zuieback.


Colleges affected

Tulane University canceled its fall semester and encouraged its students to take classes at others schools while New Orleans tries to clean up. The University of New Orleans said it planned to have Internet classes ready by October and satellite campuses open as soon as it could.