Mobile health unit calls the shots

Patients lining up for vaccinations, more
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
By Sandra Barbier
River Parishes bureau

The little RV pulled up in front of the Jewish Community Center on St. Charles Avenue on Monday morning, and soon had attracted a steady stream of patients seeking flu shots, tetanus immunizations, glucose checks and other health-related services.

The mobile medical unit is one of several in the area that is helping fill a void in medical services in New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish and elsewhere.

On a typical day, 50 to 100 people come to the mobile medical unit looking for help. Some previously went to Charity Hospital, closed since Hurricane Katrina. Others had health insurance, but don't any more. This unit, which has been regularly at the Jewish Community Center, was staffed Monday by a nurse-practitioner from Algiers, a young doctor from San Jose, Calif., a health care worker from Buffalo, N.Y., and two St. Charles Parish community health center workers.

"They can't find their doctors. They've lost their houses, their jobs" nurse-practitioner Anamaria Hebert said.

The unit, sponsored by the St. Charles Community Health Center in Luling, with grants from United Way of St. Charles and United Way of America, is staffed with health center employees and volunteer doctors and nurses from the International Medical Corps, said James Comeaux, director of the St. Charles Community Health Center mobile medical services.

The St. Charles unit has provided aid in St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans since late September, Comeaux said.

Another group began providing services in St. Bernard on Friday, so the St. Charles van may be sent part-time to Plaquemines Parish or to Lakeview, he said.

Medical care can be hard to find, said Hebert, who works for St. Charles Community Health Center. She showed one list of clinics supposedly in operation that were listed on an Internet site. At least half of the 30 locations didn't answer phone calls, had voice message machines turned on, or indicated they were wrong numbers, she said.

"You know if we're having trouble (locating clinics), what is the layperson going to do," she said.

As the temperature steadily dropped Monday, Joseph Jones waited his turn outside the van in short sleeves.

"I don't feel it," said Jones, 36. After Katrina, Jones was rescued in a Sewerage & Water Board boat from the second floor of his Gentilly home, waited for four days on an interstate overpass to be evacuated, was then bused to Thibodaux. Since the hurricane, he has found a new home and work in New Orleans.

Jones, who is mildly diabetic, said he stopped at the medical unit for a blood pressure check.

He hasn't had any medicine since the samples he got at an evacuation center. "I need to get on it," he said.

Because space in the vehicle is cramped, shots are administered outside. Patients are examined in the small dining area of the camper, which is on loan from FEMA, Comeaux said.

A San Jose community health center is loaning the group a real medical mobile unit later this week, but the center is hoping to get one of its own, either donated or purchased with donated money, he said.

Unlike the RV, real mobile medical units have examination rooms, an X-ray facility and a lift for patients in wheelchairs, he said.

"That's the biggest problem," Hebert said. "If we want people to come back, people who have lost everything, but we are not giving them medicines, they are not going to come back," she said.

"My doctor was on St. Bernard Avenue," Jones said. The street was in a devastated area and the doctor is gone. But the results of Jones' medical examination were encouraging.

"I'm good," he said. "I'm going to get it together."

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