Baltimore-area doctors recently used their medical know-how to help those who still desperately need assistance in New Orleans.
Dr. Carol Ritter, a gynecologist, and her husband, Dr. Tom Ritter, a dentist, traveled to the 9th Ward in the Orleans Parish, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. They volunteered their services to a free clinic run by Operation Blessing, a faith-based humanitarian organization, and the International Medical Alliance, a volunteer medical relief organization.
“The clinic covers internal medicine, family practice, dental care and obstetrics,” Carol Ritter said.
Many of the patients served at the clinic are locals without health care and indigents who have flooded the area in hopes of gaining day labor work, said Dr. Dale Betterton, who operates the clinic with his wife, Dorothy Davison, a nurse practitioner. “In many cases, their doctor has left the city and their records have been lost. They have no job, no insurance and no medical care,” he said.
A 2006 Louisiana Health and Population Survey released Jan. 17 indicated 38,953 people in Orleans Parish were uninsured, and 29 percent of those people attributed not having insurance directly to Hurricane Katrina.
The medical infrastructure in New Orleans has not been fully repaired in the 17 months since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Betterton said.
New Orleans had 10 operating hospitals before Hurricane Katrina, but only four of them had reopened as of Nov. 11, according to the Louisiana Hospital Association.
Many of the hospitals cannot reopen because they lack the necessary people to staff the hospitals, Davison said.
The initial enthusiasm to lend a hand in New Orleans has subsided, but Carol Ritter said the area is still experiencing a huge health crisis.
The Ritters were able to help the clinic because Louisiana passed a Good Samaritan Act so medical professionals from other states could practice temporarily without worrying about liability suits, she said.
