Harvard Students Visit New Orleans for Alternative Spring Break
A group shot of the Harvard students riding the streetcar during their alternative spring break trip to New Orleans.
During their spring break, these Harvard students had the opportunity to shadow physicians at a handful of local clinics. They learned about the major changes the New Orleans healthcare system has undergone since the destruction of Charity Hospital during Katrina.
Here is what one student learned about the situation from Tulane’s Dean of the School of Medicine:
Immediately after touring the simulations center, we had dinner with the Dean of the Tulane School of Medicine, Benjamin Sachs, as well as the Vice Dean and Executive Director of TUCHC. We found that the catastrophic flooding associated with Hurricane Katrina decimated the health care infrastructure of the city, completely ravaging Charity Hospital - the hospital for low-income patients. The model for TUCHC arose from the destruction, when Tulane physicians practiced in tents, shelters, police precincts, and mobile vans to deliver care to citizens in need.
Sachs recalled how this model of decentralized care expanded greatly in the years following Katrina and opened our eyes to the strengths of such a system. He said that currently, only five hospitals exist in New Orleans. Each hospital struggles with with an aging MD population and low physician incomes. Furthermore, all are losing money. In contrast, neighborhood clinics are not only more cost-effective, but also provide more holistic, personal, and accessible care for the homeless, uninsured, and chronically ill. We saw the power of neighborhood clinics while volunteering today and are excited about what we will learn tomorrow.
Over the course of the week here, students got first-hand experiences in low-income clinics that serve the city. This student’s description of the failings of the system really highlight the injustice towards those not fortunate enough to have health insurance:
I had just finished shadowing two medical school students, who attended to a male in his 30s who presented with a reducible femoral hernia. As the med students reported their assessment and treatment plan to Dr. Mioses, I was dismayed to hear that in his current condition, the patient could never be treated in New Orleans. The only health center for those who couldn’t afford health insurance - Charity Hospital - was severely damaged and shuttered due to Katrina. The few other hospitals in the city were backlogged with too many patients and not enough beds to fix reducible hernias. Only when the hernia becomes irreducible and strangulated, with its blood supply cut off, can that patient be treated.
Dr. Miones told me that he was fighting to get Charity Hospital reopened. He believed that NOLA’s hospitals were insufficient. I agree.
While I was impressed with the ability of Fleur de Vie and the other community health clinics we visited this week to provide holistic and long-term primary care, health education services, and mental health screenings to its patients, this experience taught me that NOLA’s broken health care system leaves much to be desired.
The poor deserve better.
Read more about the group’s visit to New Orleans, and the students’ experiences in local clinics by visiting their blog site.
Entries (RSS)