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Pastimes : Lake New Orleans -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (660)	9/9/2005 10:48:33 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 1118

U.S. Sends Disease Hunters to 'Septic Tank' New Orleans... Sept. 9 , 2005 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. government disease trackers are scouring New Orleans for outbreaks of infectious disease and beginning the job of resuscitating a health system reeling from Hurricane Katrina. Maps in a New Orleans hospital illustrate the challenge facing federal workers handed the job of making New Orleans healthy again. Flooded areas of the city are outlined in pink. A separate map dotted with pink and green Post-Its shows pumping stations that health workers want to resurrect. ``The entire city's just one big septic tank,'' said Terrence Manning, a government engineer, as he studies the map in a meeting room in Kindred Healthcare Inc.'s Kindred Hospital. Outside, some of New Orleans's most high-priced homes in the Garden District sit empty, surrounded by fallen trees. Health officials are converting Kindred into a Federal Medical Rescue Center, a public-health beachhead to watch for disease outbreaks and treat injured rescue workers. With 24 of 27 hospitals closed and most doctors' offices and clinics under water or abandoned, state and federal health workers are trying to rebuild a medical system that once served a metropolitan area of 1.3 million. They're also working to avert disease outbreaks that would compound the loss of thousands of lives and an estimated $100 billion in costs. Sheets of white paper tacked to the walls of the makeshift command center spell out health workers' top priorities: vaccinations to avoid viral outbreaks; control of AIDS, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases; care for trauma and injuries; and support for those with chronic diseases whose care has been disrupted. Two Disasters U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials from Atlanta who are at Kindred say they are still unsure of the scope of health needs in New Orleans and other areas of Louisiana. ``It's really more like two disasters, the hurricane and the flood'' said Carol Rubin, a CDC epidemiologist, in an interview at Kindred. As many as 50,000 people may be living in 160 shelters in the state right now, said Hilarie Cranmer, who is heading a health- needs assessment project for the Red Cross. The organization is dispatching workers to visit every shelter in the state to identify the extent of health problems. Wal-Mart Command Center ``Communication lines have broken down,'' Cranmer said in a Sept. 8 interview at a former Wal-Mart store in a Baton Rouge strip mall. The store has been converted into a command and service center for the hurricane. ``There are many shelters that we haven't heard from, and we have no idea what health conditions exist.'' The data collection is ``the heart and soul of public health,'' said CDC's Rubin. ``It gives you the information you need to make decisions.'' Even before they can tackle potential public-health catastrophes that may beset New Orleans, officials have had to spend time and energy on the more mundane job of making Kindred a usable headquarters for federal, state and local health agencies. Kindred is one of only two unused healthcare buildings intact enough to serve as a command center for health operations. Hospital workers fought through the storm to preserve the building's air, water and electrical systems, employees said in interviews yesterday. Patching a Tear ``We had 20 or 25 air conditioners blow right through the windows into rooms,'' said Benjamin Brekeen, the hospital's chief engineer. Brekeen and another engineer, Christopher Hays, patched the roof with plastic sheets as drenching rain poured through a tear and began flooding an electrical-switching room. Kindred's corporate officials arranged for a generator to be shipped to the hospital, and now three of five floors have power and two have air conditioning. The hospital evacuated about 50 patients along with family members and employees to locations in Houston, Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, Louisiana, according to a Sept. 2 statement on Kindred Healthcare's Web site. Company officials were unavailable for comment. On the first floor of a separate building, a Disaster Medical Assistance team from Sacramento began setting up an emergency room in what was the hospital's cafeteria before the storm. Yesterday, the floor was covered with bedpans and diapers, and the room smelled of rotten food, said a member of the Sacramento team who declined to give his name. New Orleans hospitals are cooperating with the CDC's effort to monitor emergency rooms throughout the city. They are combing the health units for signs of contagious disease that might become widespread. Zero Resistance Epidemics are a threat given the weakened condition of some people, said Ali Khan, associate director of science in the CDC's division of parasitic diseases. Khan has responded to outbreaks of Ebola virus in Africa and SARS in Asia, and is coordinating the New Orleans effort. ``Generally when you tell people you're going to drop in a four-member team to monitor what they're doing, you don't get a very welcoming reception,'' he said in an interview at Kindred Hospital. ``There has been zero resistance. Everyone is ready to work together.'' To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net.