Thread: Nursing Home Residents Among Last to Be Evacuated; Many Die

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Nursing Home Residents Among Last to Be Evacuated; Many Die

Last Updated: 9/5/2005


In the largest refugee operation in U.S. history, nursing homes were among the last facilities to be evacuated from New Orleans, following hospitals and the downtown Superdome and convention center. An untold number of nursing home residents may have been left behind in the desolated city.

At St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, 31 of 80 frail residents perished before rescuers could get to them, said Joseph Donchess, executive director of the Louisiana Nursing Home Association.

Evacuating nursing homes may be the most challenging aspect of public health. ElderLawAnswers has been able to identify at least 30 nursing homes in and around New Orleans, likely housing thousands of the city's frailest elderly and disabled citizens.

Viewers of NBC's "Meet the Press" heard one typically heartbreaking story. Aaron Broussard, the president of Jefferson Parish (a Louisiana county adjacent to New Orleans), broke down in tears in recouning the ordeal of the elderly mother of one parish employee who was trapped in a nursing home awaiting rescuers who never came.

"Every day she called him and said, `Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?'" Mr. Broussard said.

"And he said, `Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday night.

"It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here," Broussard asserted. "Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area."

After evacuations finally began, many nursing home residents were transported to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, which was transformed into a holding pen for the elderly and infirm. Dozens of people from nursing homes and hospitals lay dying on stretchers on the floor.

"Their organs are shutting down. They are septic. They are storm victims," said chaplain Mark Reeves of the federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team. "We've already had 25 die here."

Meanwhile, it is becoming grimly evident that some nursing home residents -- no one seems to know how many -- were left behind in the city. "[T}here were worrying hints that the forgotten nursing homes of New Orleans might ultimately be found to be worse charnel houses than the stranded hospitals," reports the New York Times.

The Times related an unconfirmed report that a nursing home in lower St. Bernard's Parish where 80 patients had been found dead. (This may be the same St. Bernard nursing home referenced above.)

"A Web site set up by The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans at www.nola.com to encourage people to tell their stories." reports the Times, "had numerous detailed pleas from family members of elderly New Orleans residents saying they believed their relatives were trapped in nursing homes or apartment buildings, unable to make contact because they were bedridden or too senile to ask fleeing neighbors for help."

The Louisiana Nursing Home Association has set up a Web page where loved ones can search for a nursing home resident. Go to: http://www.lnha.org/katrina/default.asp

www.10news.com

Nursing Home Owners Face Homicide Charges
Louisiana's Katrina Death Toll Jumps To 423

UPDATED: 8:52 pm PDT September 13, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- The owners of a New Orleans-area nursing home where 34 patients died in Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters have been charged with negligent homicide.

Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said the owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home, in St. Bernard Parish, were repeatedly warned that the storm was coming.

Foti said they were asked if they wanted to move the patients, but they did not. He said the owners' inaction resulted in the deaths.

Owner Mable Mangano and co-owner Salvador Mangano surrendered and were jailed.

But a lawyer for the owners said the Manganos had to make a difficult decision between evacuating the patients, many of them elderly and on feeding tubes, or keeping them at the home and weathering the storm. He said the owners were there and "saved 52 lives."

Tom Rodrigue, whose mother died in the nursing home, told CNN that his mother deserved a chance to be rescued. Instead, she drowned "like a rat."

Foti also said his office is investigating deaths at a hospice in New Orleans.