The Nation: Why Was New Orleans's Charity Hospital Allowed to Die?

[marmar]

Why Was New Orleans's Charity Hospital Allowed to Die?
Roberta Brandes Gratz


Before Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Charity Hospital was the pride of New Orleans. A 1930s Art Deco–style icon built with WPA funds, Charity was one of the oldest continually operating public hospitals in the country and was regarded as one of the most vital and successful. “Charity was one of the best teaching hospitals in the country, where students from Tulane and LSU did their training,” says Dr. James Moises, a former Charity emergency room physician, noting that it served 100,000 patients a year before the storm.

Today Charity is a skeleton of its former self, with smaller, temporary facilities. The interim coverage does not include “urgent and chronic outpatient care,” notes Moises, and reaches a vastly reduced patient population. Meanwhile, the money that has flowed from the state and federal governments to compensate for the storm’s damage to the hospital is set to be spent on a highly controversial new $1.2 billion complex on an entirely different site, separated from the downtown core by an interstate highway.

The abandonment of the old Charity Hospital stands as a potent symbol of the many disappointments and betrayals experienced by the residents of New Orleans after Katrina. The loss has been a huge blow to the poor African-American community Charity served—an outcome that is all the more tragic, critics say, because it didn’t have to happen.

Charity flooded only in the basement during Katrina. In an extraordinary act of dedication and volunteerism, a 200-person medical and military team brought in a 600-kilowatt generator, pumped out the water and prepared the hospital for service. It was cleaned (to a condition better than before the storm) and was “medical ready” within weeks, according to doctors and military personnel present at the cleanup, as well as Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, the retired Army general who was commander of the joint task force on Katrina. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/article/160241/why-was-new-orleanss-charity-hospital-allowed-die

[hobbit709]

1. The word "Charity" is the clue.

[ejpoeta]

2. yeah, there's no room for charity in healthcare. the poor are being kicked

over and over all over this country right now. it's depressing.

[CrossChris]

5. As is "built with WPA funds." They're literally dismantling the New Deal.

Just one example in an expansive attack on progressive values.

[Poboy]

6. The building itself is very pretty with Art Deco relief portraying heroic workers.

Sort of an art deco/ Dieago Rivera style.

[Wilms]

3. K&R n/t

[Poboy]

4. r'd.

[madokie]

7. To finish their job

the cheney/bush crew wanted to kill New Orleans, (they didn't care, they just sit back and watched it happen, done nothing to lessen the harm to the environment, and especially to the People, but they don't understand what it's like living a real life so they want that gulf to supply us with oil only and not seafood so to do that they gotta get ride of the people along that coast like they've been doing since the Hurricanes came. So to my way of thinking is that this is only logical to them to be the right time to take that step. Remember they want to get rid of the people on the usa side of the gulf as much as it takes to allow the drilling to continue, spills and all. They damn sure don't care about the rest of the gulf people in other countries. Look how it still is in Haiti and then them tell me some bullshit reason for more help not sent that way. Plenty of time to have that all cleaned up repaired and them going strong but that doesn't seem to be what they want to see happening so they throw money at first this one then that one and nothing gets done in Haiti but the money is sure changing hands, too the cons and from our coffers. That part sure is going on. this is just one example of where we've lost course and have to change. The world will demand it somewhere along the lines if we don't get off our tails and get in their (Congresscritters) faces and get the needed changes made. Stop this special interest bullshit. Stop this press from doing business like they are and make them go back to a time when to be a press you were to be honest and above reproach. AFter all the constitution was written with a totally free and supposedly honest press that is why they made no laws concerning the press. Same with religion pretty much too.