CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill study suggests Hurricane Katrina affected 20,000 physicians, with as many as 6,000 of them being displaced.
The toxic water flooding New Orleans and surrounding areas reportedly dislocated up to 5,944 active, patient-care physicians, the study released Monday indicated. If accurate, that would be the largest single displacement of physicians in U.S. history.
Hurricane Rita increased the total to an as yet undetermined number.
"The nearly 6,000 is the approximate number of physicians doing primarily patient care in the 10 counties and parishes in Louisiana and Mississippi that have been directly affected by Katrina flooding," said UNC's Dr. Thomas Ricketts. "Over two-thirds -- 4,486 -- of those were in the three central New Orleans parishes that were evacuated."
The number displaced also was more than one-quarter of the total number of new physicians who start practice in the United States each year, said Ricketts, deputy director for policy analysis at UNC's Cecil Sheps Center for Health Services Research.
"We don't know what this is going to mean to health care," Ricketts added. "We've never had to deal with something like this before."
