Closure of Charity strains Jeff hospitals

Sorry if this is a dupe:

Swamped with a twofold to threefold increase in indigent patients since Hurricane Katrina closed Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Jefferson Parish's public hospitals are running alarming budget deficits and begging for help from the state.

Dr. Mark Peters, president and chief executive of East Jefferson General Hospital, speaks in blunt and dire terms about the increase in nonpaying patients as well as escalating labor costs, forces that began taxing the New Orleans area's health care system after the Aug. 29 storm.

"The current health care infrastructure around the city is ready to crumble," he said.

Public hospitals across the state, in addition to private nonprofits such as Ochsner Clinic Foundation, have absorbed a rush of poor patients since Charity succumbed to heavy flooding and wind damage during Katrina. But directors of these hospitals say they are not getting the kind of compensation that used to go to Charity.

More.....
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/westbank/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1142582582218460.xml

I have a brother-in-law at East Jefferson right now, no job, no Health Insurance and he was close to death - they were going to send him home literally to die. Another brother-in-law stood ground with the doctors and now the other one is somewhat stable and is able to stay for the moment. I am so fed up with all the shit that is happening down there - isn't anyone in DC paying attention? We have planned a family trip for Easter and as it's the first time my family has been back in three and a half years, I am really not looking forward to seeing all the devastation. I thought this was America - the greatest country on the planet - what's going on on the Gulf Coast is akin to a third world situation.....

:mad: