On The Edge: Mental Health in New Orleans
It will take years, if not decades for us to know the true mental health damage Katrina caused. As this article highlights, in the aftermath of Katrina there were "dire warnings of cholera and typhoid outbreaks." Thankfully they never happened. But what seems to have been forgotten by many are the mental health issues that arise then people lose family members, everything they own, and their way of life.
But amidst the sobriety and the hoopla, the state-funded Central City Mental Health Center has chosen a more practical way to mark the anniversary of the nation’s biggest natural disaster—one that may well be the most fitting. Free testing for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will be conducted all day on Aug. 29, punctuated by a lunch at which overburdened staff members will reminisce about the tumultuous year that was.
In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, talking head “health experts” took to the airwaves in droves and issued dire warnings of cholera and typhoid outbreaks. They never came, of course, and, not surprisingly, the most serious health problems directly attributable to the storm have been mental, not physical. In the four months between Aug. 29 and the end of 2005, the Orleans Parish coroner’s office “conservatively” estimates that the suicide rate tripled.
