Catholic health care groups to run medical clinic outside New Orleans

Published: 2006-03-09

CHALMETTE, La. (CNS) -- Six months after Hurricane Katrina, St. Bernard's Parish, a civil entity just east of New Orleans, looked as if the hurricane just occurred. There was no longer standing water, but the businesses, homes and shopping centers in the small towns and neighborhoods were completely in shambles. Ten percent, or 7,000 residents, have returned to an area with almost no electricity or running water. On March 4, the parking lot of the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Chalmette was as packed as it may have been in its pre-Katrina days, but the people were there to get free lunches from a charity-run food tent, consult officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or insurance workers in trailers on-site, or receive health care at a triple-wide trailer run by three local doctors with financing and staffing assistance from the U.S. Public Health Service. The federal contract for the clinic, which has been seeing about 150 patients a day, is about to run out. Two Catholic health care systems -- Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System based in Baton Rouge and Ascension Health in St. Louis -- have stepped in and are planning to run the clinic in the near future.

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