New Orleans Mental Health System Still in Crisis

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As the storm raged outside her hospital room four years ago, an equally consuming force hijacked Alesia Crockett's mind: deep depression.

For days, Crockett lay in darkness and a tangle of sweaty hospital bed sheets, one among hundreds of desperate patients trapped inside Charity Hospital in 2005, while outside, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath battered the city.

Crockett had been admitted to Charity's inpatient mental health unit after having a psychotic episode. She had struggled for years with bipolar disorder, an illness that causes her to volley between euphoria and profound depression.

She said she barely remembers Katrina.

"Most of the time, I was in a fog, but I do remember some things," Crockett said. "Where my room was, I could see thousands of people wandering, and I could see the waters rise."

Crockett, and many other New Orleanians suffering from chronic mental illness -- and those with what is called "soft depression," or nonchronic mental illness -- say Katrina may have relented days after it hit New Orleans proper, but their mental health issues have not.

"Four years later, everything is not all right in New Orleans," said Dr. Jan Johnson, a psychiatrist who treats Crockett.

While mental health problems grow, the resources to treat those problems continue to wane.

A report about mental health issues in New Orleans after Katrina, published in early 2008 in the journal Psychiatric Annals, lists the number of inpatient psychiatric beds in greater New Orleans at 487 before the storm. Since Katrina, that number has declined to 190.

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more...http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/28/nola.mental.health.katrina/index.html

I guess in the neocon dream, NOLA would be transformed into a rich owned metro by stealing the vacated land. Then they bankrupted the nation and that screwed that up.

is no better. But there are severe problems with trying to practice medicine in Texas, and psychiatry has always been the hardest of all. Texas always seems to rank #50 among states even before this. Mentally ill go to jail instead of the hospital in many Texas cities. What a great society!

does this country turn it's head and let this happen. Mental health is just as real as cancer, a broken bone or pregnancy. I suppose that those medical issues are being ignored too. Medical health care is a civil rights issue.

:hi: