REPORT FROM:
Children’s Hospital, New Orleans
Dr. Lolie Yu, medical director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Children’s Hospital, reports that “We are all fine. Everyone was able to be relocated.”
For the time being, Dr. Yu is based at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge along with two of her colleagues. Two others are at University Medical Center-Lafayette.
“All my patients have been accounted for, and they're doing well. We’re waiting for power and water to be restored and environmental safety before we can return to Children’s Hospital,” she said.
Dr. Yu said that “doing well” is not necessarily the description for all of the staff. “Some have been greatly devastated, others have had some destruction, and then there are a few fortunate ones minimally affected.”
She said five pediatric patients were in the BMT unit when word came of the approaching hurricane. One patient could be discharged, but four were in active treatment.
No Structural Damage
The 210-bed Children’s Hospital is located in the Uptown section of New Orleans, next to the Mississippi River near Audubon Park and Zoo. Fortunately that was one area of the city that was not seriously flooded, and there was no apparently structural damage to the hospital which is closely affiliated with the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.
The hospital lost electrical power when the hurricane made landfall early Monday, but continued to operate with back-up generators for several days until patients could be evacuated.
“Children’s Hospital did not experience looting or other disturbances prior to and during our evacuation,” said Steve Worley, hospital president and CEO. “We did not encounter any flooding and – except for some minor roof leaks and one or two broken windows that were secured immediately – the hospital came though the hurricane extremely well.”
Dr. Yu’s patients were evacuated by helicopter on Wednesday to hospitals in Baton Rouge and Houston, as well as to hospitals in Kansas and Missouri.
Evacuation Completed Thursday
“On Thursday morning the hospital safely completed a total evacuation of all patients and their families, and the remaining hospital staff and physicians,” Mr. Worley said.
Dr. Yu and two of her unit’s physicians, Drs. Tami Singleton and Maria Velez, are together seeing transplant as well as other oncology and hematology patients at Our Lady of the Lake. “So far we are doing fine, and we are getting used to surroundings here,” she said.
Two other physicians, Drs. Raj Warrier and Renee Gardner, are at a clinic set up at University Medical Center-Lafayette, in Lafayette, La.
Dr. Yu asked that her phone numbers be given so that her patients can find her and the other BMT unit physicians. For now Dr. Yu can be reached at (225) 763-6337 or by cell phone at (901) 326-6667.
Updated 9/20/05