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Hospitals Evacuating High-Risk Patients
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Three years ago, Hardy said, he was incarcerated in a New Orleans jail, trapped for three days as the city flooded. This time, he almost got stuck in the hospital but was released. "I want to go somewhere safe," he said, carrying only a white plastic bag with bottled water and personal items.
But other patients or their family members were pleased with the institutional response to Gustav. "It's been going well," said Carla Arpin, as her ailing husband was loaded on a stretcher into an ambulance at Tulane for a late-afternoon trip to the airport. They were flying to North Carolina, she said.
Health officials do not know how many patients are being moved for the storm, said Michelle Clement, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Hospital Association. But judging from counts at some hospitals contacted by reporters, the number appeared to be in the hundreds.
After Katrina, the association's Web site added a patient locator feature -- found at http:/
Louisiana State University Health Care Services, which operates seven hospitals in the southern part of the state, completed a 48-hour evacuation procedure Sunday. All of its at-risk hospitals were fully evacuated, except the facilities in downtown New Orleans and in Bogalusa. At least 120 patients were transferred to hospitals in northern cities, while pregnant women and infants were sent to a women's hospital in Baton Rogue, said Michael Butler, chief executive of the hospital system.
"This is our biggest evacuation, and it's gone very smoothly," Butler said. "We've done our post-Katrina planning, and it's gone very well."
In the city, a trauma center will remain running at University Hospital. About 79 patients will stay there, and 49 were evacuated, said Cathi Fontenot, interim chief executive of University Hospital. About 486 employees will stay at the hospital, including 83 physicians, to support urgent needs after the storm.
"We have extra water and nonperishable food, extra pharmaceuticals for an extra week," Fontenot said.
