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Pete Maravich Center on the Louisiana State University campus, Baton Rouge, La. |
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A Journal from Katrina’s Front Lines
by Kyle Louise Jossi, RN, and
Kiersten Jossi Henry, RN, BSN
As the media reported the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, my daughter, Kiersten Henry, RN, BSN, a clinical nurse educator at Montgomery General Hospital, Olney, Md., felt strongly that a nurse’s skills and versatility could make a difference in the first days of the disaster. After many phone calls to organizations to offer her help, she set out with a co-worker for the hurricane stricken area.
The following are excerpts from her daily e-mails. Her efforts made me proud of the nursing profession and tremendously proud that my daughter is a nurse! I know that Kiersten would also want me to express her appreciation to everyone at Montgomery General Hospital who encouraged her to go.
Friday, September 2nd
We landed in Jackson, Miss., and headed to Baton Rouge, La., to the Louisiana State University (LSU) campus where volunteers had set up a “Special Needs Shelter” (basically a hospital shelter, complete with code carts, peds unit, etc.). When we offered our help, they were amazed that we had come from Maryland. They currently have 180 patients with the expectation of 500 admissions tomorrow. They have critically ill patients, but the saddest part is the area for lost children. The plan is to get the less critical patients out and turn the filled house into a critical care hospital.
Saturday, September 3rd
We’ve just finished a 13-hour shift at our makeshift hospital at LSU’s basketball stadium. The entire floor of the arena was transformed into a makeshift hospital that includes an ICU, peds, pharmacy, lab, and X-ray. Our unit, the “red zone,” is an ICU complete with vents, ABG machine, and many medical students.
We treated a man with a GI bleed who had been rescued from his house after four days. There was 12 feet of water in his house. Another patient was a ventilator-dependent man who lived at home. His daughter manually bagged him for two days. The man did fine, but his daughter was a diabetic and had a dangerously high blood sugar.
Hopefully I’ll get some much-needed sleep today so I can go back tonight and do it again. The great thing about being here is that there are so many stories of strength and sheer determination … you can’t help but feel inspired by the people here.
Sunday, September 4th
We did get several dialysis patients who haven’t been dialyzed in a week. The biggest challenge is sorting out the patients who were in nursing homes; we have no information on their history, so we don’t know if they have dementia or a change in mental status related to a physiologic cause. The onslaught started at about 6 PM when school buses filled with patients started rolling in. Despite their overwhelming loss, we have encountered few patients who are unpleasant. We are starting to see people withdrawing from alcohol and drugs. The thing I am most touched by is the people who have lost everything who are volunteering with us. If you are finding the news depressing, know that the atmosphere here is not depressing … the people are amazingly resilient and grateful.
I am in awe of some of the nurses who are working hours on end despite the fact that their hospitals are gone, their homes are gone. We don’t know how many patients are left to come, and the rumor mill runs rampant. We hear that 500 patients are coming and four hours later we get 100. I’m tired, having worked 17 hours, but I’ll sleep and go back tonight. By the way, the teams from different states have fancy names. We’ve decided to name ourselves MEAT (Maryland Emergency Assistance Team).
Later that night:
We are headed to the New Orleans airport where 9,000 sick patients are being cared for by health care providers who are working 24/7 and in desperate need of assistance.
Tuesday, September 6th
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Andy Devine, RN, helps prepare prescripions with author Kiersten Henry, RN, BSN, in the ballroom at the Onmi Hotel in New Orleans.
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Today was by far the most incredible day we’ve had during our time in Louisiana. We accompanied a medic looking for help gathering supplies so they could go to New Orleans to set up a clinic for the police there. Driving into New Orleans was such a surreal sight. There are military helicopters everywhere. We drove past some of the burned-out, collapsed buildings you saw on the news. An armed officer drove some of us to a pharmacy and served as our armed guard and “pharmacy assistant.”
The store had been looted, and it was almost humorous that all of the drugs starting with “Z” were gone because that was the closest letter to the door of the locked pharmacy section of the store. Many of the medications we needed had been looted, but, thanks to the Tarascon pharmacopeia, I was able to find substitutions. We also collected over-the-counter medications, especially antifungal creams, as many people have athlete’s foot.
Back in the ballroom of a local hotel, we went to work preparing prescriptions. It was a great example of interdisciplinary teamwork; as I read out each person’s prescription, the docs helped me with any necessary substitutions. I was pretty proud that I was able to find medications to substitute for almost all of the needed prescriptions.
The New Orleans Police Department officers were grateful for assistance, especially because we were the first health care providers they had seen. It is obvious that most are shell-shocked by what they’ve seen.
There is no support for debriefing because they are still in the middle of this crisis. We plan to head back tomorrow afternoon to assist anyone who wasn’t there today and then fly home Wednesday. Please keep these people in your thoughts.
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