Systematic Violence: Neglect and Morbidity in Post-Katrina New Orleans

The American Medical Association recently published a groundbreaking study by Dr. Kevin Stevens about pre-Katrina and post-Katrina death rates in New Orleans. The study entitled, “Excess Mortality in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: A Preliminary Report,” explores the failures and shortcomings of post-Katrina medical care in New Orleans. The study found that there has been a nearly 50 percent increase from the baseline mortality in Post-Katrina New Orleans. The report states that “the causes for this dramatic increase in mortality rates can be linked back to how Katrina “severely compromised the public health infrastructure … [and] … it is suggested that a destroyed or poorly recovered public health infrastructure, which normally would be able to identify health problems and protect the health of a population, has in fact contributed to excess mortality.”

The failure of the public health system in the United States to care for and protect the lives of those affected by Katrina can be seen as nothing short of systematic and institutional violence. The neglect of the U.S. public health care system has caused hundreds of needless and avoidable deaths in New Orleans. The lack of an effective, attentive, functioning, and caring health care system has piled on casualties onto the already suffering and over-burdened city of New Orleans. As if the loss of lives due to Katrina’s destruction and the fumbled FEMA reaction were not enough, there are now residual effects that continue to haunt the community.

The lack of medical attention and social welfare in New Orleans may, in the long run, be what most burdens New Orleans. Cities can reunite after a crisis and rebuild—healing comes from coming together as a city, state, and nation. This has not happened in New Orleans. Instead of an outpour of solidarity and support, New Orleans has been relegated to the back shelf of national concerns.

Perhaps most disconcerting is how long this report took to surface. In fact, the only reason the researchers were able to trace a significant rate in mortality was by taking an unconventional approach and tracking patient’s obituaries and death notices. The public health care system had no way of effectively tracking the mortality rates, and therefore did not report any significant increase in morbidity. It was doctors who, noticing their patients’ obituaries appearing more and more often in the papers, undertook the study using innovative research techniques. The lack of standardized record keeping is dangerous and unsettling because it does not hold the public health care system accountable for its often dismal failures, failures that unfortunately show themselves in a disproportionate and untimely loss of human life. The study points out the immediate need for the states to adopt an electronic reporting system for medical records. The need for accountability and record keeping in the U.S. health care system is of paramount importance. Institutional racism and neglect of specific minority groups is something that continues to claim lives and plague American society.

While we can claim to have one of the most technologically advanced health care systems in the world, the lack of proper distribution and predominance of racism hinder the U.S. medical system from properly competing with those of other First World countries. Although we spend the most on health care than any other nation in the world, in terms of infant mortality rates we are listed as an unimpressive 37, with countries such as Greece, Columbia, Morocco, and Costa Rica all having lower infant mortality rates, despite of the fact they spend a mere fraction of what the United States does on health care.

The reason why the U.S. health care system ranks so low in terms of global comparisons is due to its lack of coverage for the uninsured and the poor. The American health care system leaves behind thousands of people each year. What New Orleans is struggling with right now exposes the flaws in our confusing, inflated, and dysfunctional health care system.