Health care in New Orleans post-Katrina continues to be a nightmare for patients, physicians, and hospitals, reports the Baltimore Sun. With many residents losing their jobs after the hurricane, the ranks of the city’s uninsured have doubled to 40% and now include professionals like teachers, who must, for the first time, rely on charity care. A mere 1,200 of the city’s 4,500 physicians have returned to New Orleans, 2,300 beds have been reduced to fewer than 500 as more than half the city’s hospitals remain closed, and estimates are that heart attacks have increased by 25% because patients with cardiac problems can’t get care.
The situation for suburban hospitals isn’t much better as they cope with overcrowding and providing large amounts of uncompensated care. East Jefferson General Hospital, for example, says it has lost approximately $3 million each month treating uninsured patients after Katrina. East Jefferson’s CEO warns that without federal help, the hospital will have to turn away patients. Emergency-department waits at suburban hospitals are twice or three times what they were before the storm, and with most of the nursing homes and home health aides gone, hospitals are having trouble discharging patients. John Matessero, CEO of the Louisiana Hospital Association, told the Sun that the federal government has provided scant help to repair hospitals and bring physicians back to the city. “There’s no quick solution, but we have to do something quick,” said Matessino. “The whole situation is getting out of control.”
