Health workers say they were ready for Katrina

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal health workers deployed to
Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina hit disputed criticisms that
the government was not prepared to deal with disaster, saying
their agencies, at least, were ready.

Teams started preparing days before the hurricane actually
hit, gathering supplies, assigning doctors, nurses, paramedics
and pharmacists and arranging the logistics needed for rescue
and aid effort.

Victims, politicians and media have all criticized the
federal government for a sluggish response to Katrina, which
may have killed thousands along the Gulf coast and forced more
than a million from their homes.

“The surgeon general canceled everybody’s leave. We were
sort of aware that this was going to be a critical need,” said
Capt. Mike Milner, New England regional health administrator
for the uniformed U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) based in
Boston and a member of the Health and Human Services
Department’s emergency response team.

Milner was sent to Alexandria, Louisiana, northwest of New
Orleans, to help organize a 1,000-bed field medical shelter.

“I believe we had our act together,” he said in a telephone
interview. “We were building some teams already way before we
saw the storm land.”

But the medical teams had to wait for Katrina to actually
hit before they knew where to go, and then they had to go where
local and federal emergency management officials told them to.

No teams were sent into New Orleans itself, where refugees
packed the Convention Center and Superdome stadium after levees
broke and most of the city flooded.

HOTBEDS AND 12-HOUR SHIFTS

USPHS Capt. Charles McGarvey has been at an aid center set
up at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge with a
38-member team since just before Katrina hit last Monday.

“We have been pretty much at it ever since, with 12-hour
shifts,” he said. Another 82 officers have since arrived at the
makeshift clinic at LSU’s basketball stadium and auditorium.

They were not only caring for the acutely ill, but dipping
into the Strategic National Stockpile of drugs to provide care
for evacuees who had to leave behind their own medications and
supplies.

“It’s pretty rough down here,” McGarvey said.

The staff, not only uniformed public health personnel but
employees of the National Institutes of Health, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and even the Indian Health
Service, were themselves living like refugees.

“Half of my officers are at a tent city put up for them.
Half are in the auxiliary basketball court in basement of this
complex,” he said. “Those officers are hotbedding,” he said,
referring to a military practice in which several people share
a single bunk or cot by sleeping in shifts.

McGarvey said local residents have helped make things
bearable by delivering home-cooked meals and pizza.

McGarvey said his operation was now expanding and would be
sending medical staff to New Orleans to see to both immediate
needs and set up for the long term.

“The issue in next couple of days is probably going to be
to prevent the spread of diseases in that particular area,”
McGarvey said.