National Nurses United

New Orleans:Private 7/9/07 1:26 PM Page 15 StressedOut As New Orleans struggles to rebuild from Hurricane Katrina, local nurses are still on the front lines of a constant healthcare crisis. BY IAN MCNULTY IAN MCNULTY I t wou l d be easy to miss the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic if you weren't looking for it, but in New Orleans these days plenty of people are looking for it. Formerly a cozy, cottage-style house under the shade of a huge oak tree, the new role of this five-room clinic is proclaimed by a banner nailed to the porch. Hundreds of people come here week after week—the indigent and elderly, expecting mothers, high school kids, people who haven't seen a doctor or nurse in years, and people who had robust health insurance plans before Hurricane Katrina swept away their jobs and all stability from their lives. Inside the clinic, rooms that were once the den, kitchen, and bedrooms of registered nurse Patricia Berryhill and her family are now exam rooms, patient education areas, and a waiting room with a collection of stuffed animals for young visitors. Proclamations of the nonprofit clinic's organizing principles to care for others and strive for excellence deck the walls. But outside are crumbling, gutted apartment buildings, destroyed stores, a ruined church with its roof still ripped half off, and the constant rumble of flood-damaged homes being demolished almost two years after Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the federal levee system swamped this entire neighborhood and much of the city. "We try to be a beacon of hope," said Berryhill, who now serves as clinical director of the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic in her former home. "We see people all the time with uncontrolled diabetes and uncontrolled cardiac conditions, but mostly it's mental health issues. It's unbelievable stress. You have to remember, for these people it is a daily thing to deal with devastation and destruction." New Orleans' healthcare network was stretched thin even before Hurricane Katrina hit Aug. 29, 2005 and almost killed it. Today, the system is making an excruciatingly slow recovery and far from stable. Nurses are on the front lines still fighting for the most rudimentary levels of care for vulnerable residents while themselves coping with sometimes incalculable personal losses. Many hospitals remain closed, including Charity Hospital, the massive downtown facility that served the city's poor and uninsured for generations, and the JUNE 2007 Veterans Administration hospital. Countless private practices have disappeared and medical professionals of all specialties have been scattered across the country, some permanently. City, state, and federal officials have been engaged in intense and often contentious debates over the future of healthcare in New Orleans, from where to build new facilities to how to pay for services, though actual construction remains a distant prospect. "Everyone in New Orleans has been affected mentally, psychologically, especially nurses," said Celeste Lewis, a registered nurse at the River Oaks Psychiatric Hospital and a volunteer with the St. Anna Episcopal Church Medical Mission in New Orleans. Their struggles were the focus of a seminar held in New Orleans in May by the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) titled "The Post-Katrina Healthcare Challenge: The Voices of Local Katrina Nurse Veterans." RNRN is a national organization formed by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee in the aftermath of the hurricane and now has 4,000 members. W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 15

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