What's happening with New Orleans hospitals?

[marylanddem]

I haven't heard anything on the news concerning how or if they're evacuating people from hospitals or nursing homes - does anyone know?

[steve2470]

1. AFAIK, they are open and operating nt

[ewagner]

2. I heard

that they can't evacuate and so they're staying put and medical personnel will stay with them.

gonna be rough

[babylonsister]

3. Good question; here in the bayou city, when we had

20" of rain in a week due to TS Allison, the underground parking garages were totally flooded out, as were some floors of the hospitals-did a lot of damage in the medical center area.

[tedoll78]

4. My sister is a nurse at Children's..

about one month ago, she put in paperwork to take a vacation this past week, and on the paperwork she put "To visit friends in Houston."

Good timing..

According to her, hospital staff are still expected to report in to work. Pretty scary.

[Horse with no Name]

5. Not sure about NO

but hospitals have an extensive emergency preparedness plan.
They release all patients who can possibly be released and only keep the ones that cannot.
They generally congregate patients to a general area that is considered safe.
Most of the time all staff is required to be called in--they will generally let you bring your families if you don't have an alternate plan.
As a staff member, you either stay at the hospital--sleeping in shifts--generally sleep 6 on 12, etc...and so it goes. Unless you have a really good excuse, you aren't exempted.
Hospitals are generally designed to be one of the safest building infrastructures that there is.

[Sgent]

6. Good friend of mine

is a ER Doc at Charity (one of the largest hospitals).

They have a detachment of docs assigned to the superdome, and everyone else is sleeping in the rooms.

Could be ugly... but not evacuated.