New Orleans hospitals evacuating high-risk patients

Washington Post, September 2, 2008

New Orleans hospitals have evacuated elderly patients, infants in incubators, and others among the city's most vulnerable ill residents via a fleet of ambulances. The evacuations underscore the effort by local health officials to avoid the missteps that occurred during Hurricane Katrina three years ago, when some critically sick people were left virtually abandoned in flooded, powerless medical facilities and nursing homes. The patients were taken to the airport for transport to hospitals farther east, in Florida and North Carolina. Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a news conference that officials have received unconfirmed reports of three patients dying in transport.