Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates. Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.
Healthcare panel includes public health Ph.D. candidate and local blogger Holly Scheib, Cecile Tebo, crisis unit coordinator for the NOPD and one of New Orleans magazine’s Top Ten Female Achievers; Dr Elmore Rigamer, medical director of Catholic Charities, moderated by our very own Liprap.
It’s not an exaggeration to show that the nation’s healthcare woes are magnified in New Orleans, especially after Katrina and The Flood. If there was a time for accessible and affordable community clinics in this city, it is NOW!
Katrina Pain Index 2009: “0. Number of hospitals in New Orleans providing in-patient mental health care as of September 2009 despite post-Katrina increases in suicides and mental health problems.”
Closure of NOAH = crime against New Orleans. Cecile Tebo lets us know that these patients will end up in hospitals not in the area. The mentally-ill also end up in the closed structure of jails to contain problem, where they do not get required treatment.
Loki’s aunt Ninette asks two great questions: What about the health of our first responders? Also, what about the stressful nature of living in New Orleans, with two or three full pages of obituaries daily as opposed to just one? Dr. Rigamer invites one and all to the Catholic Charities free care, but it has its limits. Holly: We get caught up in conversations about access; health is more than access, doctors and medicine. Where we live, who our neighbors are, what we eat, these community factors are paramount, and the conversation should be broadened to include these factors. Cecile touts 211 – more New Orleanians need to know about this. But, an internet search of “New Orleans 211” yields useless information. As the G-Bitch asks, “Where“s the information? Where are the lists and hours and phone numbers?”
Short-term funding for much-needed clinics eventually runs out. Continued care is crucial to full recovery.
Q&A: Loki mentions seeing a mental health counselor on returning to New Orleans in late 2005. This professional had a breakdown while treating Loki and subsequently quit the profession. (I’m sure it wasn’t Loki who drove this poor person up and over the wall. Not at all! :-P) Similar thing happened to me; I had to quit my post-K counselor after one or two sessions because it was obvious she needed therapy more than I did. In and after a crisis situation, it is a back-breaker to be strong for everyone around you. This is why I personally went with Pistolette‘s self-treatment. (Hey, it worked in 1991, why not in 2006?) Not everyone can just snap out of it, however, especially those with pre-existing, chronic, chemical and/or genetic issues and conditions.
Update: Healthcare in this country is broken on the whole, as friend Jenny and I discussed later, and this comes down to what people define as “healthcare.” Definition 1: Not taking care of yourself, be it through lack of education, motivation and/or money, and hitting the ER or Urgent Care facility for an expensive emergency procedure. Definition 2: Annual physical exam, preventive care, exercise, eating well, education as ongoing armor against illness. Definition 3: Preventive care mentioned in 2 as well as available, affordable care in case of accident, cancer, childbirth, etc. A lot of people in New Orleans and America think healthcare is Definition 1, while what we need is people thinking in terms of Definitions 2 and 3, a healthy mix of personal responsibility and a social net.
