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New Orleans:Private 7/9/07 1:26 PM Page 16 "There are just so many people off their meds and they don't have access to any help...If you have a mental health breakdown, at best you go to jail and at worst you get killed. I don't understand why, almost two years after Katrina, we don't have at least 100 mental health beds here." where to go and they let their illness deteriorate." Anne Mullé, a nurse practitioner with the grassroots, volunteer-run Common Ground Health Clinic in the city's Algiers neighborhood, said when people do seek help at the area's few reopened hospitals, the wait for care can be so long they frequently leave without even speaking to anyone. "We send people to the emeror registered nurse Charles gency room and they come back 12 Jarreau, the Katrina experihours later because they still ence left an indelible mark. weren't seen," she said. "We're in a "I could talk about it forever position of trying to find the next or write it down, but it would never Alice Craft-Kerney, executive director best thing that we can do. Someget to other people like it gets to us," of the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic times they're coming back from the said Jarreau. emergency room with discharge At the time of the storm, he was working in the intensive care unit at Memorial Medical Center and notes and we can't even believe that this person was discharged from was there when the levees broke and inundated the surrounding a hospital in their condition." Mullé worked as a family nurse practitioner at University of Calineighborhood with floodwater. Jarreau and his fellow nurses, the doctors, and other staff were left to care for hundreds of patients for fornia San Francisco Medical Center before coming to New Orleans five days with no electricity, soaring summer temperatures, and to volunteer through CNA/NNOC's disaster relief effort in the weeks diminishing food supplies. Some 34 patients died at Memorial before after Katrina. She decided to stay and is now among those trying to the facility was evacuated. Some of those deaths sparked allegations care for people who have few other options. "We see a lot of former Charity [Hospital] patients, but we're also of murder by the Louisiana attorney general against a doctor and two nurses in a case that has made international headlines but at this seeing nurses, teachers, people who had jobs and insurance and happy, secure lives before the storm," she said. "We see a lot of writing has yet to go to court. When helicopters finally did arrive at Memorial, Jarreau was patients, but each day we have to turn people away." Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the state of healthcare in among those who helped move patients to the roof for evacuation. While helping one patient, he was pinned between a gurney and the post-Katrina New Orleans, the nurses said, is the lack of mental landing gear of an incoming Coast Guard helicopter and had to be health services for a population that has undergone both collective evacuated himself. He was treated for bruised ribs and a ruptured and personal trauma during and after the storm. Berryhill and Craft-Kerney said practically all of the patients they spleen at Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge, the facility see at the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic have mental health issues, where volunteer nurses organized by CNA worked during the crisis. Today, Jarreau serves as nurse manager of the New Orleans often stemming from the stress and slow pace of rebuilding and Gamma Knife Center but he says the city is facing a crisis because feelings that no one is available to help them. "There are just so many people off their meds and they don't have many other seasoned medical professionals have chosen not to return after the storm or have returned and subsequently left to continue access to any help. We have people going to jail because they can't their careers in more stable environments. Also, he says, the sad sta- access in-patient care," said Craft-Kerney. She said the most pointed example of the perils of such lack of tus of healthcare in New Orleans is giving residents who have acute care occurred near the clinic when a man with mental health probmedical conditions second thoughts about moving back or staying. "They're thinking, 'I'm not going to wait two hours on my porch for lems was shot by a National Guard soldier patrolling the streets who the ambulance to come, then three hours on the ramp, then hours more thought he was brandishing a gun. "If you have a mental health breakdown, at best you go to jail and in the hospital to be seen when I need to be seen right away,'" Jarreau said. at worst you get killed," Craft-Kerney said. "I don't understand why, "They need a sense of security that if they're sick they'll be treated." almost two years after Katrina, we don't have at least 100 mental ore often than not, nurses on the RNRN panel in New health beds here." Orleans said, sick patients are not being treated or are putting off treatment until their conditions become critical. urses in new orleans must contend with the challenges of Alice Craft-Kerney, executive director of the Lower 9th Ward caring for others while also going through the often grueling Health Clinic, said healthcare availability is so limited that the first process of rebuilding their own lives from the Katrina disaster. patient who walked through the clinic's door when it opened in "If it rains hard, it's a big deal emotionally for a lot of people," March had to be taken away in an ambulance. because it reminds them of the flood, said Lewis, the volunteer nurse "She was just that ill," Craft-Kerney said. "Patients don't know at St. Anna's Medical Mission. The day-long seminar included a panel of nurses, including Berryhill and Lewis, who shared their own harrowing experiences during the disaster and sounded a public health alert about the trends they see developing among both patients and caregivers in the chaotic healthcare environment of postKatrina New Orleans. F M 16 REGISTERED NURSE N W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G JUNE 2007