HJNO Jan/Feb 2025

DIALOGUE 14 JAN / FEB 2025 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS population on what happens when you move to Medicare — what does it mean, and what should you look for, and what prescription benefits? Not telling themwhat to choose, but absolutely educating on what questions to ask. And the thing is, when you get into the situation of a need, you don't know that it is or isn't covered. And that's your frustration, right? Because you don't have the resources to do it, but you have to have certain meds, and you didn't anticipate the condition. I think partnering better, holding them accountable if they say they're doing case management and if they say they're going to educate their constituents or their customer space, hold them accountable to that. Then it's pretty cut and dry when they come in that it's not a major denial issue. It's either it's covered or it's not. And I think some of it is just a little bit of a delay opportunity. Editor I agree with you. Let’s talk staffing for a moment. Is Terrebonne experiencing the staffing shortages we're hearing from other hospitals? Peoples Terrebonne General, I have to say we did, and we're getting so much better. Do you want to know our biggest challenge ever? I'll deviate for a minute. Our greatest moment in my career path or, I think, in Terrebonne General's was Hurricane Ida. I know that sounds funny. Hurricane Ida was a devastating hurricane for our area — direct hit, especially to Houma. They'll tell you it was a [category] four. It was absolutely a five if you lived through, because we got the water, we got the wind, and it totally blew the roof off of our large organization. In my career, and I've been in healthcare well over 30-something years, I've done a lot of things. I've never had to evacuate an entire hospital and say I couldn't give care. That was probably the most defeated I've ever felt. And my staff knew it when we sat there. We lived through the hurricane. We had 140 patients in the middle of COVID and everything else, and we made it through the night, and things were leaking and flying. I said, "We'll be fine."The worst things get, the calmer I get. Until my facility team came up and said, "We're missing part of the roof." Well, then I got a safety issue there. We have to evacuate people. And we spent the next 24 to 36 hours trying to partner with people to take our patients, and airlift them out, and send them wherever. And our people were here. Even though their homes were devastated, many of them lost their home, many of them had nowhere to be — their families had evacuated and they had all but a tarp to stay under — and they were here, helping our community get out of this hospital. We were told that our organization would probably be down for many months. But to me, that puts people out of jobs; that hurts the economy of our hospital; it hurts the economy of our community. And where would people go? Because every place around here was closed. The entire commu- nity was hit. It wasn't like just the hospital — the whole community. Electricity, water, … there was nothing. I brought together the people we had here and said, "Okay guys, the bottom line, we're going to be up and running in a week or two." And they told me after that they thought I was nuts. We had meetings. We never left, day and night. We got this core group, and people would come in from out of town and they'd say, "We want to come in." The infrastructure couldn't support more peo- ple, but we had enough food, water, and things that were basic necessities, but I said, "Look, we're not comprised of the building. We're comprised of our skill, and we need ER services.” It was up within 24 hours. We got tents, we got things, we put them in our parking lots. And we were providing care because you got linemen out working. They're stepping on nails, people are try- ing to come back in the community, they're getting chainsaws out, they're getting stuck. So, we immediately had tents up. Now, you have no air conditioning here. In the middle of the summer, it's 100-something degrees. And then oncology people were saying, "I got to have my chemo. I don't know what to do. I don't have gas." There was no gasoline here. "I can't leave the com- munity. I can't drive. What do I do?" I said, "We got this." We got everybody together, and what we did is had people come through a drive-through to give them their chemotherapy, have them park in the parking lot, and our docs made rounds car- to-car and would check on all the people as they got their chemo. Now, of course, it wasn't a new patient, but it was where they didn't have to leave town to do it. Every week I'd say, "What service are we bringing up? I need clinics up." So, we found a building that may not have been as injured and put in different specialties. Pediatrics is one you need right away. Everybody's got kids, right? So, all of our docs, to keep peo- ple out of an ER setting, immediately came to the table with generators and things, and we started doing clinic services. We were pretty injured, but you’ve got ladies still wanting to have babies — it's the darnedest thing — and my docs are like, "No, we got to deliver. We have to."Well, they had to move it to an alternate facility for a lit- tle bit. But I told them, "Look, we're going to do it, but understand when a lady has to deliver, I need food service. They’ve got to stay overnight." You need x-ray service; you need labs. We did it out of closets; we did it out of whatever. And we were able to start that within three, four weeks. So, we were up and done in five weeks. We were back in business. Editor Remarkable. Peoples We were battered and bruised, but we had it. And I attribute that to the team, the physicians, and the people of our community who all banded together. And I told them, this might've looked like our most wounded moment, but it was a shining hour because people came together like you could never imagine. And that made me so proud. I never had to ask twice — never.