Patient care and evacuation at Charity Hospital during Katrina

Patient care and evacuation at Charity Hospital during Katrina became a striking counterpoint to the failures and abandonment reported at other New Orleans hospitals. Charity flooded and lost power, plumbing, computers, telephones, and elevators; it had no helipad and no corporate overseers to coordinate assistance. Yet staff continued caring for patients in their rooms as they worked to evacuate the hospital, which took until Friday, September 2. The account emphasizes both the severity of the conditions and the persistence of care within them.

Conditions and Constraints

Charity was contending with a citywide evacuation crisis as well as its own damaged systems. Many residents had no way to leave, roads out of New Orleans were congested, and ambulances dispatched to threatened hospitals, nursing homes, and homes were overwhelmed; some were immobilized on the interstate, while others began taking patients to the Superdome instead of out of the city. Against this backdrop, Charity had to move patients without a helipad and while essential hospital infrastructure was failing.

The pressure inside the hospital was compounded by hazards and confusion beyond its walls. A gunman reportedly on a nearby roof disrupted evacuation, and convoys trying to reach Charity over water were reportedly shot at and looted. More than a hundred psychiatric patients were inside, and soldiers brought additional ventilator-dependent patients to the hospital. News reports indicated that Charity had been evacuated before it actually had been, obscuring the continuing presence of patients and staff.

Care and Evacuation

Despite the loss of basic services and the danger surrounding the building, doctors said hospital workers continued providing care in patients’ rooms until the end. The evacuation was not completed until Friday afternoon, September 2, one day after Memorial Medical Center’s transfers were completed. Charity had approximately twice as many patients across its two campuses as Memorial, with a lower staff-to-patient ratio, making the extended operation especially demanding.

The account describes staff sustaining morale through regular gatherings as well as improvised communal activities. Leaders held meetings every four hours in the lobby, bringing together workers from doctors to janitorial staff. Employees staged a talent show by flashlight, painted, and laughed. These details sit alongside the reports of flooded conditions and disrupted rescue efforts: the hospital’s response depended not only on moving patients but also on maintaining a working community among those still caring for them.

Outcome and Record

Fewer than ten patients died at Charity, according to the account, despite conditions described as similar to or worse than those at other hospitals facing existential threats. The hospital’s evacuation took longer than Memorial’s, but the comparison is not simply a matter of speed: Charity had substantially more patients, fewer staff per patient, no helipad, and extensive loss of power and other services.

The number of deaths is presented as an estimate, and the records cited do not align precisely. A body-recovery database table listed one body from Charity and two from University, while a 2006 U.S. Senate report cited nine deaths at Charity, based on an interview with its emergency-preparedness medical director. The differing figures underscore the limits of the available record rather than resolving the count to a single definitive total.

Significance

The Charity account complicates any simple picture of hospitals as either capable sanctuaries or uniformly failing institutions during the disaster. Staff continued bedside care under extreme constraints, while evacuation depended on disrupted transport and rescue systems and was accompanied by unreliable public reporting. Its outcome is set against hospitals where patients were left behind or medication practices later came under scrutiny, making Charity’s reported continuity of care an important contrast without erasing the dangerous conditions its patients and workers endured.