Hospitals in New Orleans and surrounding areas have decided not to evacuate for Hurricane Ida. Many hospitals in the Southeast are at are above capacity already. Patients are medically fragile and would face long journeys to beds that might be available in other areas of the country.
The situation brings back memories of horrible stories of hospitals and staff members left behind after Hurricane Katrina sixteen years ago, with generators flooded, no power, no AC in sweltering heat, not enough staff and too many patients, leaving staff to make heart-wrenching decisions about who could and couldn’t be saved.
Dr. Jennifer Avegno (head of New Orleans Health Department) said that no local hospitals are planning to evacuate patients to facilities further away from the storm, as most hospitals near New Orleans are at or near capacity due to COVID-19. WWNO Public Radio
Dr. Mark Kline, Physician-in-Chief of Children's Hospital New Orleans, tells (MSNBC) that his "staff is exhausted" due to a surge of children infected with Covid-19 and "the last thing in the world that we need right now is a category four storm."
Still, hospitals are preparing and say they learned lessons from Hurricane Katrina.
At the state’s largest hospital system, Ochsner Health System, officials ordered 10 days worth of fuel, food, drugs and other supplies and have backup fuel contracts for its generators. One positive was that the number of COVID-19 patients had dropped from 988 to 836 over the past week — a 15% decline (from their peak occupancy).
Associated Press
The White House announced FEMA is sending 150 health care workers and 50 ambulances to the area, the AP reported.
In what will surely further strain New Orleans area hospitals, only a small part of the city has been placed under mandatory evacuation orders.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell ordered a mandatory evacuation for a small area of the city outside the levee system. But with the storm intensifying so much over a short time, she said it wasn’t possible to do so for the entire city.
“The city cannot order a mandatory evacuation because we don’t have the time,” Cantrell told the Associated Press
A hospital system in LaFayette, LA, says it has brought in extra generators and made plans that can keep generator power directed toward most critical patient areas, if necessary
Elisabeth Arnold, spokesperson at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, said Lourdes has backups to their main generators, with enough generator power to run the entire hospital for over a week. If they needed to limit generator power to use for outlets necessary to life safety and critical needs, like ventilators, they could run those machines for over two and half weeks without needing to replenish the generators’ fuel supply.
The (Baton Rouge, La) Advocate
Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center’s Donnie Simon, director of safety, security and emergency preparedness, said his hospital has brought in back-up generators and have load-tested their backup power system to know it can keep ventilators operating.
Military medical surge teams are already at the hospital helping with Covid patients and will shelter in place with hospital staff to handle Covid and hurricane patients, Simon told The Advocate.
Also, hospitals are worried about how they will handle the inevitable injuries that come after major hurricanes as people find themselves trapped in homes, injured by trying to move downed trees, left without power and sometimes medication or access to ongoing medical treatment like dialysis.
Also, crowding large numbers of people into buses and shelters may mean another surge in Covid-19 infections after the hurricane.
Oh, great. Now we have this guy on Twitter. Please don’t retweet inflammatory opinions like this one from a doctor in California about what he thinks will happen in New Orleans.