(no subject)

[novapsyche]

A Legacy of the Storm: Depression and Suicide

New Orleans is experiencing what appears to be a near epidemic of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, one that mental health experts say is of an intensity rarely seen in this country. It is contributing to a suicide rate that state and local officials describe as close to triple what it was before Hurricane Katrina struck and the levees broke 10 months ago.

Compounding the challenge, the local mental health system has suffered a near total collapse, heaping a great deal of the work to be done with emotionally disturbed residents onto the Police Department and people like Sergeant Glaudi, who has sharp crisis management skills but no medical background. He says his unit handles 150 to 180 such distress calls a month.

Dr. Jeffrey Rouse, the deputy New Orleans coroner dealing with psychiatric cases, said the suicide rate in the city was less than nine a year per 100,000 residents before the storm and increased to an annualized rate of more than 26 per 100,000 in the four months afterward, to the end of 2005.

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

America is failing New Orleans in a big way.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Our administration has made it clear that it cannot respond to crises. This, I think, is a combination of accidents and design. The neocons want Americans to see the government as incompetent, so that we come to the idea that we can't rely on the government to do, well, anything.

We have so many resources, human and otherwise. What's lacking is will. And clarity.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

It's not just the government, though that is a huge part of the problem. I think a majority of Americans don't care either. One of our major cities was fucking wiped off the map, and it's still gone -- most of the damaged area still looks exactly like it did when the water receeded -- and Americans' only reaction at this point is to yawn.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I think the response from the top down influenced how ordinary Americans reacted and continue to react. The fact that the disaster happened in the first place and the incompetence that followed thereafter is a source of shame. The administration's response to this shame is to ignore it, so that is what the rank and file has done as well.

The hurricane couldn't have been prevented, but everything afterwards could have gone better. But Bush doesn't admit failures in the making, and this failure is still ongoing.

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

unrelatedly:

http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/06/20/ap2828439.html

Paralysis cure within reach?

[brendand.livejournal.com]

Still seems lightyears away... but I'm glad to see 11 out of 15 rats could bear weight.

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

A hell of a jump, anyway.

I have a friend who got into a car accident when she was 14 or 15, has been largely paralyzed since then (about 14 years ago).

[tay-en-pointe.livejournal.com]

as bad as the war in Iraq has been, with news reports near daily focussed on tolls of death, the situation in our own country, most specifically in new orleans is invisible. (yes i saw your link yesterday).
in jan or feb of this year, i predicted violence, mass emotional breakdown, and basic danger due to the fact that the entire city's population is suffering both PTSDs and myriad socio-economic crises.
all the leaders of this country, and their administrations, have had to face war, for even in the most conservative and self-effacing times, when one proclaims its people to be the leaders of the free world, such responsibilities and conflicts arise.
this administration had to deal with a catastrophe at home, and it failed miserably.
new orleans is not discussed because it is the true epitome of where we, as a nation, are on the moral compass. and we've been trained over the past 7 years to ignore the markings on that compass.
the base fact of the matter is, at this rate, what the city is will never be given the chance to heal. maybe this administration, and those who perversely hope to inherit what it leaves, is to just make it another Disneyland that no one will admit is far closer to the depravity one can often find in a place like Atlantic City.
as one who left new orleans only recently, and was there for the storm and the following 6 months, i cannot tell you how saddened i am to even write this comment.
thank you for keeping the concept of this even on life support.