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Louisiana Nursing Homes Now Vacated, Many Elderly
Feared Dead
FEMA setting up cruise ships to house senior citizens
Part of this story from
ElderLawAnswers.com
Sept. 6, 2005 FEMA has announced that 30 nursing
homes in the New Orleans area have been vacated and 9,400 people
rescued from hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. Among the last facilities to be evacuated, the nursing homes
began tallying their dead. At St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard
Parish, 31 of 80 frail residents perished before rescuers could get to
them, said Joseph Donchess, executive director of the Louisiana Nursing
Home Association.
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Find Family Members
The American Red Cross has launched the Family Links Registry,
which will aid individuals who are seeking loved ones and family
members in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Family Links
Registry can be accessed by visiting
www.redcross.org or by
calling: 1-877-LOVED-1S (1-877-568-3317) to register.
Evacuees wishing to inform loved ones of
their location can register their name by clicking on Family
Links Registry on
www.redcross.org or by calling 1 877-LOVED-1S. Concerned
friends and family can register the names of their loved ones
and view the list of those already posted. Due to the extent of
the damage and the number of people displaced, concerned friends
and family members are encouraged to visit the site daily to
consult the list, as it will be updated continuously. |
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FEMA is bringing in at least two Carnival Cruise
ships to Galveston, Texas, to house senior citizens, 65 and older,
according to spokesperson Ed Conley. They were scheduled to begin last
night processing people for the cruise ships. Those accepted will be
bused to Galveston and live on the ships in that port until they can get
permanent housing arrangements.
Evacuating nursing homes may be the most
challenging aspect of public health. ElderLawAnswers.com has been able
to identify at least 30 nursing homes in and around New Orleans, which
were likely housing thousands of the city's frailest elderly and
disabled citizens.
Viewers of NBC's "Meet the Press" heard one
typically heartbreaking story. Aaron Broussard, the president of
Jefferson Parish (a Louisiana county adjacent to New Orleans), broke
down in tears in recounting the ordeal of the elderly mother of one
parish employee who was trapped in a nursing home awaiting rescuers who
never came.
"Every day she called him and said, `Are you
coming, son? Is somebody coming?'" Mr. Broussard said.
"And he said, `Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get
you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get
you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's
coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday night.
"It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths
in New Orleans here," Broussard asserted. "Bureaucracy has committed
murder here in the greater New Orleans area."
After evacuations finally began, many nursing home
residents were transported to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International
Airport, which was transformed into a holding pen for the elderly and
infirm. Dozens of people from nursing homes and hospitals lay dying on
stretchers on the floor.
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"Their organs are shutting down. They are septic.
They are storm victims," said chaplain Mark Reeves of the federal
Disaster Medical Assistance Team. "We've already had 25 die here."
Meanwhile, it is becoming grimly evident that some
nursing home residents -- no one seems to know how many -- were left
behind in the city. "There were worrying hints that the forgotten
nursing homes of New Orleans might ultimately be found to be worse
charnel houses than the stranded hospitals," reports the
New York Times.
The Times related an unconfirmed report that a
nursing home in lower St. Bernard's Parish where 80 patients had been
found dead. (This may be the St. Ritas nursing home referenced above.)
"A Web site set up by The Times-Picayune newspaper
in New Orleans at
www.nola.com to encourage
people to tell their stories." reports the Times, "had numerous detailed
pleas from family members of elderly New Orleans residents saying they
believed their relatives were trapped in nursing homes or apartment
buildings, unable to make contact because they were bedridden or too
senile to ask fleeing neighbors for help."
The Louisiana Nursing Home Association has set up a
Web page where loved ones can search for a nursing home resident. Go to:
http://www.lnha.org/katrina/default.asp
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