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Hospitals see storm-related illnesses
Published Thursday, September 4, 2008
NATCHEZ — Natchez hospitals have seen an influx of heart attack patients since Hurricane Gustav moved through the area.
Respiratory problems have also been a major issue, mostly due to stress caused by the storm, Natchez Community Hospital medical director of emergency services Michael Wheelis said.
“Stress just compounds an already precarious health situation,” Wheelis said. “Unfortunately, when people evacuated they didn’t leave their medical problems at home.”
The lack of electricity has also made respiratory problems more difficult to deal with, especially for those who use home based oxygen treatments, he said.
“Another thing we did from this ER, we coordinated the supplemental oxygen supply for homebound oxygen dependent patients, who have no power and cannot use their home oxygen concentrator due to lack of power,” Wheelis said.
At the same time, Natchez Regional Hospital has opened an area with electricity for people to perform their home-based oxygen treatments.
Natchez Community Hospital was prepared for the influx of patients, Wheelis said, which has been a mixture of evacuees and Miss-Lou residents, but has had to send some patients to other hospitals, including the Central Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson and Riley Hospital in Meridian.
“The mechanism in place to transport them so easily took care of that,” Natchez Community Hospital CEO Tim Trottier said.
The hospital is almost completely full, but Wheelis said he expects the number of patients to go down this weekend, when residents are able to return to New Orleans and other coastal areas. However, a Federal Emergency Management Agency contract with AMR ambulance service has been extended through the weekend to help deal with the high number of patients.
The contract brought 10 ambulances and two support vehicles to town to respond to emergency calls at shelters.
“(The extra FEMA ambulances) frees up our local ambulances to do local emergency calls,” Wheelis said. “I’m very appreciative of the very hard work that both ambulances services have provided to the community.”
Comments
Posted by lroberts1 (anonymous) on September 4, 2008 at 10:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
well maybe one day you will be able to take care of the paitents in Natchez instead of shipping them all off to Jackson to the tune of over $1000.00.probably more now with the price of Gas. Stop firing the good dr's and give the nurses a raise.They deserve it, they work thier behinds off, & theER lets patients set of 6 or seven hours before they even open the darn door . I have been ther e with both my grown sons. it's like waiting on the end of the world in pain they tell you to wait.. What kind of compassion it that??????????????? Get more GOOD ER nurses if you have to go to Baton Rouge or Jackson to get them.I have seen the ER Nurses set behind the dest for hours while patiens wait for some kind of treatment..Both mu=y son'r werre at deathdoor and was told to WAIT.. WEll I become a real bitch at that time. The BOY nurse was to busy making out with another nurse to even look our way. Glad HE is gone.
Posted by lroberts1 (anonymous) on September 4, 2008 at 10:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
oh and another thing DON"T HIRE HIM BACK...
Posted by johnny1nut (anonymous) on September 4, 2008 at 11:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
lroberts1 don't post nonsense that nobody wants to read. Take your lithium and save the brain cells that you have. When you get all you thoughts together put them on a piece of paper ,and mail it to somebody who gives a sh@%@%@%. Get a life, get a job, and get off this board.
Posted by surgtech (anonymous) on September 4, 2008 at 11:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
A few months ago, I went to one of the local hospitals, I was having an asthma attack, I waited and waited, they finally started to call patients back . But it was patients who had arrived after me, if they had been critical I would have understood but it was for a patient with back pain and one for foot pain. I left, and went to the ER in Baton Rouge where I was seen immediatley.
Posted by johnny1nut (anonymous) on September 5, 2008 at 8:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Obviously your asthma attack wasn't bad if you had time to drive to Baton Rouge.
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