In the PMAC, University students have seen Tasmin Mitchell dunk and have witnessed Quianna Chaney sink 3-point shots. But after Hurricane Gustav’s landfall last Monday, the basketball arena is only familiar to those who experienced Hurricane Katrina on campus in 2005. The foul lines and hardwood floor are covered by cots, divided into eight sections by white, maroon and green drapes hung from poles. Special-needs patients rest on the court where typically the screech of sneakers is drowned by dribbling repetition. Fans don’t cheer in the upper sections. Instead, 10 National Guardsmen circle the higher level in pairs to provide security detail, assault rifles slung over their shoulders.”Things so far have been very good,” said Dr. Robert Thibodaux last week, who is volunteering in the PMAC for the second time in four years. “It was much more chaotic [during Katrina] than this year, so things are going quite well considering.”The PMAC is being used as a state-operated, special-needs medical facility, which officially opened Aug. 29. National Guardsmen are on site to provide security to medical and other relief personnel. As of Sunday morning, 169 patients were in the facility with 90 caregivers, typically a patient’s family member, according to Robin Kistler, University EOC spokeswoman. A total of 499 people were in the PMAC Sunday morning, counting patients, caregivers, volunteers and National Guardsmen.On Monday, the facility’s population peaked with 200 patients and 132 caregivers — capacity is 400 people, one caregiver for each patient, according to Jamie Roques, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals spokeswoman and nurse practitioner.”It’s just begun,” Roques said last week. “But this time might be easier and quicker than Katrina.”After Hurricane Katrina, the special-needs medical facility operated out of the Carl Maddox Field House, where patients remained for six weeks after the storm. Roques said she cannot estimate how long patients will be housed in the PMAC but said they cannot return home until roads are cleared and electricity is restored across the state — feats that may take weeks.”Most of what we have here are chronically ill patients,” Thibodaux said. “Most of them reside in nursing homes. They have a lot of conditions but aren’t sick enough to be in the hospital.”The Maddox Field House was used as a federal shelter with room for 500 people. Fifty beds were used as a Temporary Emergency Medical Operation and Staging Area, while the remaining 250 were used in the same manner as the PMAC. At 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, the Maddox Field House sheltered 70 medical special-needs patients, 47 caregivers, 85 U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps members, a 35-member Disaster Medical Assistance Team from Massachusetts and a 24-member team from Georgia.The Maddox Fieldhouse closed Sunday. All patients were transferred to the PMAC as part of the University’s demobilization plan, Kistler said. “We have consolidated what we could into the PMAC because space permitted,” she said. “We transferred patients we could from the Fieldhouse to the PMAC.”Starting at 8 a.m. Aug. 29, PMAC workers fielded “hundreds” of phone calls on their 10 lines used to triage patients, allowing paperwork to be complete before arriving on campus. Once patients made it to the PMAC, they underwent a physical examination and then registered for a place to stay in one of the four wards, organized for logistical purposes by type of care needed. At least 44 volunteers registered to help Tuesday, Roques said. Overall, 244 volunteers, medical and non-medical, have lent a hand to patients in the PMAC. Volunteers can sign up online and be assigned jobs before arriving on site. The PMAC didn’t have power for about six hours Monday, but no patients were adversely affected because of the loss. Roques said she expected a back-up generator to kick in, but because of technical difficulties, the generator failed, and the PMAC sat in the dark to weather Gustav.When the generator failed, Roger Walters led his advanced life support team in driving their ambulances close to the PMAC doors, where they strung extension cords from the vehicles’ power converters.”There was enough [power] to go around for the critical needs,” Walters said. “It just took a lot of coordination.”Another setback facing PMAC workers is quickly depleting medical supplies. Deborah Guidry, DHH emergency response coordinator for public health in region 2, said despite receiving adequate supplies from local hospitals, other parishes and the state, some supplies — oxygen tanks, diabetic aids and adult diapers — were disappearing quickly. Roques recommended items not be donated as she anticipates restocking from state-funded shipments.”The patients we received were a lot sicker than we would normally have anticipated,” Guidry said of DHH’s calculations to provide supplies for 200 patients for 72 hours.Chartwells, the company contracted to provide dining services to the University, is responsible for feeding PMAC patients, Roques said. The PMAC shelter also includes mental health assistance and an electronic medication station — the only one at a Louisiana shelter — which is stocked daily with the medications patients need, eliminating the need for an on-site pharmacist.The PMAC shelter is a joint operation between the University, DHH, Department of Social Services and the LSU Health System.—-
Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]