New Orleans health care system destroyed

No hospitals operating normally; many doctors and nurses likely to leave

<snip> “Essentially the health care infrastructure of New Orleans is gone — it no longer exists,” said Cappiello, who just completed a three-day mission to the city along with a colleague from the Illinois-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.

Although the city has more than a dozen hospitals, none have resumed normal operations. Officials at Children’s Hospital, which Mayor Ray Nagin had hoped would be ready when residents are allowed to return to the Uptown neighborhood this week, said they may need 10 more days to prepare. <snip>

The hospitals seemed to have been well-prepared for Katrina’s howling winds, but not for the disastrous flooding that followed, Cappiello said. That foiled plans to evacuate critically ill patients and knocked out backup generators that would keep air conditioning and lifesaving equipment on.

At Memorial Medical Center, doctors and staff worked valiantly during the worst of the flood to evacuate more than 200 patients by boat and helicopter, but 45 patients — most of them critically ill — died at the hospital. <snip>

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9391997/

and seen so much. I have to tell you as soon as the AC went out I would have been outta there. I'm not proud of that.

These folks are HEROES.

He was only able to save 270 people though. More than any other Democratic Leader though except Nagin or Blanco.

On top of everything else, doctors are accepting jobs left and right in other areas -- including the just elected head of the LA Medical Society (in Baton Rouge).

Medical Schools have had their entire budgets wiped out by upper level administrators. Although the MD and RN programs will survive, a lot of the sub-specialty programs and residencies could suffer.

For instance -- Charity Hospital was one of the largest tramau hospitals in the country, and a lot of ER Docs, Tramau Surgeons, etc. were trained there. Charity will probably never re-open.