Dr. Kiersta Kurtz-Burke tells her husband, Dr. Justin Lundgren, about caring for patients at Charity Hospital in the days following Hurricane Katrina.
Originally aired August 25, 2006, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Transcript
KK: Basically, every way that we ever practiced medicine in the 21st century in America was gone. And we were constantly explaining what was going on to the best of our ability. I mean I probably went around to every patient’s room ten times a say to say, ”Okay, this is what we know right now, I just came from a meeting.” Because I just wanted them to feel like they were in the loop, you know?
JL: How was their morale?
KK: As the week went on, I think people felt a little more afraid, and I really perceived that our patient’s felt that they might be left. That, maybe, people would take off, and so we spent a lot of time assuring them that they were going to be the first one’s to leave, that we would stay until, you know the very bitter end.
JL: Describe for me what it was like evacuating the hospital, I mean the actual process, and then, what did you think?
KK: It was probably the biggest leap of faith of my life to put these people I’d been caring for on boats, it was like we were just putting them into the great unknown, although I knew that it had to be better than being in that hospital setting, I had to have faith in that.