Medical personnel at the Lowry campus and across the state have tackled myriad health issues for Katrina evacuees, from filling prescriptions to treating some for terminal disease.
Since evacuees first arrived at Lowry on Sept. 4, teams of doctors, nurses, paramedics and pharmacists have seen more than 500 patients and filled close to 1,000 prescriptions, officials with Denver Health Medical Center said.
At the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, a 48-year-old woman is being treated for terminal breast cancer, and in Pueblo, pediatric staff at St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center have cared for a three-week-old baby.
“It sort of runs the gamut that you see if you are doing primary care, but they had been cut off from everything,” said Dr. Mary Loomis of Denver Health Community Health Services.
Prescriptions, vaccines and other needs can be addressed on the spot, but some evacuees require long-term care.
Starting from scratch
More than two weeks after escaping the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Geannie Fahm waits in the University of Colorado’s Cancer Center for breast cancer treatment.
“I didn’t have any of my medical records or insurance information when I got here,” said the mother of three, whose children also require medical attention. “All I had was my FEMA number, but we all have doctors and we receive medical attention. We are being treated like royalty in Colorado.”
Fahm’s journey here started with a frantic evacuation from her home in Metairie, La., to Albany, La., moments before the storm hit.
“I packed for five days,” she said. “Hurricanes come and they go. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t get to go home for five months.”
Valerie Anzaldua, 27, said she fled New Orleans with her husband and two children days before Katrina arrived because she was pregnant and about to give birth. They wound up in Amarillo, Texas, where Anzaldua’s third child, Analicia, was born on Aug. 23.
But after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast shores, Amarillo was overrun with evacuees and the family decided to go to Oregon to join other extended family who had fled, Anzaldua said.
Traveling by Greyhound bus, they only made it to Pueblo. One genetic-health test was done on Analicia in Amarillo, but Anzaldua was anxious to have a follow-up test done in Pueblo. A pastor called the hospital and a “nurse came and picked me up,” she said.
When nurses heard of the family’s plight, they gathered diapers, formula, clothes and other items for the kids. One nurse found a job for Anzaldua’s husband. The family decided to stay and are living in a home with three months free rent set up by Posada, a nonprofit agency in Pueblo.
“Everybody has been really generous,” Anzaldua said. “But it has a lot to do with the hospital. The nurses, they were awesome. If it wasn’t for them, we would still be on the streets.”
Temporary triage
In the Denver area, Loomis is among the hundreds of medical personnel who have attended to evacuees at Lowry.
Temporary triage units were set up at Buckley Air Force Base by Aurora firefighters as planeloads of evacuees touched down. At Lowry, triage was set up inside the dormitory and later in a tent just outside the dorm.
Compounding the task of seeing a rush of patients in makeshift settings was that most, if not all, evacuees had no medical records with them.
“Many patients had their pill bottles or lists of medications, and we had to take their word for what they are being treated for,” Loomis said. “If somebody had something that needed to be taken urgently, we could do that. We had same-day dosing and a small dispenser on site.”
New patients continue to arrive at Lowry, although not in the same large numbers. A triage unit and an urgent care center remain on the campus and are now housed at the Lowry Family Health Center.
Fahm and her family are receiving medical treatment and are staying with family in Thornton, but she said part of her family’s recovery will involve going home.
“We don’t expect to go home until the holidays,” she said. “We are not going home until each of us has access to doctors and medicine – not until we have everything we need to stay healthy.”
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-820-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
