Fat Tuesday

Mardi Gras is coming around this year, once again. It's in about a month on February 28th. The holiday that's quintessentially New Orleans has deeper meaning this year. With the Katrina tragedy causing the upheaval of New Orleans, many evacuees left New Orleans, possibly never to return.

The recovery process has been amazing, but let's face it, New Orleans wasn't exactly a thriving city before the hurricane, and the hurricane only exacerbated this problem. I've heard commentators try to encourage anyone who's ever gone to Mardi Gras to come to Mardi Grad this year as a sign of support.

On the face of it, it's quite commendable. People coming to New Orleans to help spend money and help the city back on its feet. And yet, as noble as that sounds, sometimes one doesn't realize what problems a lot of people in New Orleans causes.

NPR had a story this morning about an elderly gentleman who suffered a stroke. Having worked at a hospital, he knew he was suffering from a stroke, and knew that the sooner he could get to a hospital and get treated, the better his chances of avoiding any long-term permanent damage.

His granddaughter took him to the emergency room in a hospital in New Orleans where he waited. Minutes went by. Then hours. Then several hours. The man kept wondering where the doctors were. A year ago, he would have been attended to right away. Only when a hospital administrator recognized his employee in the hospital did the man get some attention.

It had little to do with incompetence, and much more to do with the fact that several nearby hospitals hadn't reopened, and the ones that were opened were simply swamped, unable to deal with the demands being put on the system. And this is months after Katrina. A woman working at the hospital had to advise people that if they really needed care, they should consider finding some other place than New Orleans, since they were simply not capable of handling

Worse still, there's Mardi Gras. The population of New Orleans jumps up tremendously during this period. Hospitals get three times the number of people during this period. As overwhelmed as they are now, it's hard to imagine how much worse it's going to get for Mardi Gras. The city seems to feel it's necessary to carry on with Mardi Gras, nevertheless. The issue of hospitals appears to be attracting some notice. If you go to one of the Mardi Gras website, they try to reassure people that a particular hospital will remain open through Mardi Gras, which suggests it's going to be shut down afterwards.

These are the kinds of stories that NPR presents that are fascinating to listen to (though I heard the suggestion that people attend Mardi Gras from NPR as well).

The country is spending I assume billions to run a war to protect Americans, and yet, there is some very real immediate need for that money to spent locally. It's not the way the government likes to run, though.