Post-Katrina, hospitals still struggling
AP - Fri Jul 28, 8:21 PM ET
NEW ORLEANS - You go to the drugstore to refill a prescription and learn the doctor's left town. You spend an extra week in pain because disk surgery isn't an emergency. You're admitted to a hospital, but the rooms are full, so you spend days in ER.
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/Hurrican...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Despite a City’s Hopes, an Uneven Repopulation
Lee Celano for The New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY
Published: July 30, 2006
NEW ORLEANS — In McKendall Estates, a prosperous but flooded neighborhood on the east side of the city, the end of the school year meant a summer of frenetic rebuilding.
Barbara Jenkins watched as a mirror was installed in her home in a subdivision of New Orleans East.
A new whirlpool bathtub just arrived at Barbara Jenkins’s house, and beveled mirrors have been installed on her dining room walls. Ms. Jenkins’s neighbors are busy watering their flowers, painting the trim on their houses and accepting deliveries of new appliances. Some houses are so immaculate, with shiny new windows and lush landscaping, that it is hard to imagine the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina 10 months ago.
But much closer to downtown, in the Broadmoor area, Lydia and Charles Wiley are among the few pioneers on their block of South Miro Street. As soon as schools closed for the summer in New York City, where the Wileys had stayed since the hurricane, they brought their three children back to New Orleans. They now live in a trailer outside the home they are repairing.
“A lot of the kids in the neighborhood aren’t back, and I don’t think they’ll be back,” said Ms. Wiley, a sales clerk. “Long term, I think it will pick up. At least, I hope.”
Rest of Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us...rn.html?ref=us
Missing Katrina victims center closing Wed Aug 2, 5:42 PM ET
BATON ROUGE, La. - Louisiana officials said Wednesday that they are closing the center created to find residents missing after Hurricane Katrina.
Officials and volunteers received reports of 13,400 missing people after Katrina hit Aug. 29, 2005. All but 136 were located.
The Find Family Assistance Center opened Sept. 7 to help find residents scattered across the country in the chaotic evacuations prompted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Officials at the center, overseen by the Department of Health and Hospitals and state police, say they have run out of leads on the remaining missing people. The cases will be given to local law enforcers.
Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state medical examiner, said the center's success rate was better than expected.
Authorities had initially thought several hundred people would never be found because their remains would not be recovered or because they were intentionally avoiding detection by law enforcement or estranged relatives.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060802/...TBiMW04NW9mBHN lYwMlJVRPUCUl
Suicide prevention group is working hard
Stress from Katrina starting to build up
Thursday, August 03, 2006
By Kathy Steffan
Before Katrina, St. Tammany Parish had a suicide rate higher than the national average and the highest in the state.
The nonprofit organization that fights to decrease those numbers is unsure where the parish stands post-Katrina, but in the past several months it has seen an increase in suicides across the parish.
"The loss and trauma from Katrina are starting to build up," said Phyllis Chandler, president of the St. Tammany Outreach for the Prevention of Suicide.
Chandler and other volunteers with STOPS are working harder than ever to provide support and education to community members. They are doing it with the help of a two-year grant received from the Episcopal Church Disaster Recovery Fund.
"The grant provided us with a real boost," Chandler said.
"The funds are being used responsibly and allowing us to put out there what the community needs," she said.
STOPS is using the grant to initiate a group that will serve children who are not only survivors of suicide but survivors of any kind of loss, specifically from Katrina, Chandler said.
The six-week program, titled Stepping Stones, will be led by two licensed therapists and is set to begin in September.
The grant also will be used for a one-on-one counseling program offered two days a week, one in Slidell and the other in Covington. Counseling sessions will be conducted by licensed counselors for individuals or families who have suffered a loss from suicide or from Katrina.
STOPS will offer its last suicide intervention class of the year on Sept. 7 and 8 at the Greater Covington Center, 317 N. Jefferson. The class, offered several times a year, teaches suicide intervention skills training to social workers, teachers, clergy and or concerned citizens.
The class is an intense two-day training session, Chandler said, and will be offered at a reduced rate due to the grant. It also will provide participants with 12 ˝ continuing education hours.
Chandler said the grant has also allowed the all-volunteer organization to hire an administrative assistant, which frees up the volunteers to work on other programs in the community such as LOSS, or Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors.
Through LOSS, volunteers are able to work with the St. Tammany Parish coroner's office at the scene of a suicide.
"Our volunteers go to the scene to help the family members suffering from the loss by offering hope and Kleenex," Chandler said.
The LOSS program is in need of caring volunteers, Chandler said. They currently have about nine volunteers who are on call around the clock, she said. "It just takes caring citizens who want to help those who have lost loves ones to suicide," she said.
STOPS also offers a support group called Survivors of Suicide for those who are left behind after a suicide occurs. The support group meets twice a month in Mandeville.
For more information on STOPS or programs being offered contact Robert Freehill at (985) 237-5506.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.s...330.xml&coll=1
We can't forget about the many displaced people of Hurricane Katrina even though the rest of America moved on.
A Few Post-Hurricane Katrina Updates
One can only hope that Fiddy or Lil' Jon won't be guests.
Maybe I've missed it, but I havent seen her say anything enlightening enough to warrant needing a talkshow so she can push her platform.
Hybrid Mode
