Health care in New Orleans

It is sad to think how many billions we spend on the war every month yet the effects of natrural disatster of biblical proportions on our own soil has faded from our attention. The federal government's response to Katrina was inadequate and continues to be so. The medicare wage index is woefully understated in New Orleans following Katrina which means hospitals spend more than Medicare pays them to treat patients. New Orleans is not asking for a handout. They just need there wage index to reflect reality (as it does in other markets). For a country that has split the atom and sent a man to the moon, I'm unclear as to why changing a wage index is so hard?

Healthcare in New Orleans is still in a pitiful condition.
After two years of commuting to New York to work, the comparison on returning to work in New Orleans; drives me to make these comments.
Hey, we were never on the cutting edge, but care was adequate with multiple choices. I have practised here for 25 years. The physician shortage and over-burdened hospitals that survived Katrina need immediate resuscitation to make it.
Surely it must not take 10 years to replace the hospitals affiliated with LSU Medical School; the core of indigent care and teaching.
For rebuilding a city; housing, schools and hospitals should have been the priority, all to be done in three years. Instead the city is suffocating in indecision and grandiose plans.

I live here in New Orleans, sadly this is really no different than it was before. I think, the only difference is we had more choices then. I have had family member who, had to undergo life saving heart surgery, before the "Big K', have to sit in a hospital holding ben for 12hrs with chest pains. He got so tired of waiting, for a bed, he just went home and prayed. What else is there for us to do? We could all go somewhere else. If you've never been here you can't understand the hold "The Big EZ" has on her people. One walk through City Park or a drive down St. Charles street is enough, for an visitor to get it. "Big K' may have hurt us a little, and put things at a slower growing pace. We "Cajuns" just love our city enough to hold her up for awhile, until she heals her wounds.

If you are doing a story on health care in New Orleans, be sure to research the current state of local mental health care for your story. It is the biggest crisis of health care in the region (in a state that is already at the bottom of the heap for psychiatric/psychological care).

I agree with Robin. The mental health care in New Orleans is a joke. My grandmother suffers from bio polar disorder and the doctors at first could not agree on what was causing her manic episodes. Meanwhile her physical health was failing (kidneys) and she wasn't being treated while in the psychiatric wing of the hospital. My family could not get straight answers from the attending doctors on her care. It seemed that she just lay in bed most of the time and they released her several times because they needed her bed, not because she was better.

I went to University Hopsital with excrutiating pain caused by dry socket from a wisdom tooth extraction performed by residient dentists in the same building. I informed the receptionist of my situation and it was over an hour and a half before a nurse took me in only to take my blood pressure and temperature and send me back to the waiting room. Others there told me they had been waiting over 17 hours without any treatment. I was forced to leave and go across town for relief and foot the bill since I didnt have insurance since I'm a college student and can't afford it. I felt that at the very least they could have provided some pain relief during my ridiculously long wait. I found it appalling. There was also another women constantly moaning and complainng of pain with one of her legs scarily swollen and no one paid any attention. It was down right discusting