Editor's foreword

The general reports on hurricane Katrina have been depressing enough, but what of the impact on older people?

The body count began after a delay of six days. The ‘Homeland Security Secretary’ Michael Chertoff said that the search was going to be “about as ugly a scene as I think you can imagine”.

Perhaps rather surprisingly the nursing homes of New Orleans were apparently among the last to be evacuated, after the hospitals and the Superdome where the downtown population wound up.

At one nursing home, St Rita’s, 31 out of 80 residents died before being rescued. That’s nearly 40 per cent fatalities. We have also heard reports of care-home owners being prosecuted for murder through negligence – not very comforting.

An elderly lady was reported as having plaintively called her son every day from St Bernard’s home asking, “Are you coming son? Is somebody coming?”. NBC reported she was finally drowned on the fifth day after the flood. The Parish priest declared that “bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area”.

There were, it seems, many ambulances and coaches available, even 100 surgeons and paramedics with a state-of-the-art mobile hospital “stuck in rural Mississippi”, according to the Associated Press. Even after the National Guard belatedly organised some basic food distribution, USA Today reported that despite a 90-year-old man’s son queuing up for over a mile for food and water he was only given enough for one. “It sucks. He’s 90. He can’t walk a block,” he said. A woman with ID cards for 12 old people in her care was also just given food and water for one. She was forced to queue up 12 times…

Such cases suggest death by bureaucracy. This all seems in stark contrast to the efforts made in floods and disasters affecting the UK (and even exemptions made during matters such as the fuel strike of 2000) to deal with the needs of the sick and the vulnerable first. But, especially as winter approaches, we should not be complacent, as many older people still die of cold and neglect. The hurricane and ensuing flood was also a huge disaster by any reckoning. How would we really cope in a similar situation here? What are the priorities of the strong over here in Europe when the worst happens? Dare we really criticise?

On the bright side, according to the University of Chicago our human brains are still evolving and growing generation by generation, though they still shrink with age and rattle around more loudly. But the biggest heads for a long time to come, of course, will belong to a certain cricket team. If you didn’t wangle the day off then you must be very committed indeed to the calling of elder care or possibly French.

David Coldrick
Editor
david.coldrick@wrigleys.co.uk

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