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STILL IN RECOVERY; One year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, many New Orleans hospitals are still struggling to restore services.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Jessica Zigmond

In the year since Hurricane Katrina hit the nation's Gulf Coast, providing healthcare to residents in one area just outside of New Orleans has been similar to a stroke patient's recovery, according to Michael Pisciotta, administrator at St. Bernard Health Center in Chalmette, La. "Patients have a stroke and can't walk,'' Pisciotta said, describing the region immediately after the storm. "By December, we could stand. By March, we were using the parallel bars. Today, we're up and walking.''

Pisciotta is among the administrators on the Gulf Coast battling to keep their systems afloat amid extraordinary circumstances. Before the storm, he had worked as an assistant administrator for Chalmette Medical Center, a 194-bed hospital owned by Universal Health Services, a $3.9 billion for-profit hospital company. UHS also operated 350-bed Methodist Hospital in New Orleans, and River Oaks Hospital, a 126-bed psychiatric facility in Jefferson Parish. Both Chalmette and Methodist remain closed, while River Oaks reopened in November 2005.

The town of Chalmette's dramatically smaller population no longer is served by a full-fledged hospital, and its current provider is the St. Bernard center, a makeshift clinic operated by two Roman Catholic health systems.

After Chalmette Medical Center was destroyed by the storm, the U.S. Public Health Service provided healthcare in St. Bernard Parish from October 2005 until April 2. The next day, the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System in Baton Rouge, La., together with Ascension Health, took over, providing services in a triple-wide trailer in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Chalmette, a town about seven miles outside of New Orleans. On May 29, the health center expanded to 22,000 square feet in 26 connected, air-conditioned trailers.

The story of the St. Bernard Health Center demonstrates the myriad challenges that Louisiana's health system has endured in the past year, is dealing with today and will face in the future. Those challenges include the severe damage to or complete loss of entire facilities and equipment; depletion of the healthcare workforce; increases in uninsured care and questions about the state's charity-care system; physical, emotional and mental issues that have affected every person no matter the amount of loss; and corporate responses that suggest a commitment to patient care but focus more on the corporation's own...