NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- The shutdown of most hospitals in New Orleans has packed emergency rooms at facilities in the suburbs.
Only two of the city's seven hospitals, Touro and Children's, are open, the New Orleans Times-Picayune said. Charity Hospital, the trauma center for the region, remains closed but is operating a makeshift facility at the city's convention center and is negotiating for space at another hospital, while Tulane University Hospital plans to reopen Feb. 14.
"If we have a bad flu season or a good Mardi Gras, we're going to have way more patients than we can handle," Dr. Mark Peters, president and CEO of East Jefferson Medical Center, told the newspaper.
Peters said construction accidents are aggravating the problem since many of the workers who have flooded into the region to help with rebuilding do not have local doctors -- so when they are injured they join the flood of locals waiting for hours in emergency rooms.
