new orleans... musings
I thought I'd put up a series of thoughts and reactions I had to my time working at a free Health Clinic- Common Ground. (www.cghc.org) Here you go!Reactions and Reflections from New Orleans, 2006
Robertson Class of 2009 Domestic Summer
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May 14, 2006
When the hot air hits your body when you walk out of the door, when you smell the dirt, the garbage, and everything left behind- then you’ve arrived. That’s what welcomes you to New Orleans. The garbage. I thought that it was bad in the French Quarter, where bottles upon bottles fill the gutters that already reek of rotting leftovers. We had to watch our step in the dark, exploring the narrow streets for the first time. The smells were shocking after the air-conditioned chill of the airport.
But that was nothing. Cheryl, a family friend volunteered to take us on a quick tour of the Ninth Ward. I kept on saying, “Wow” and “Oh my goodness” because it was bad. The garbage piles coming out of buildings with broken windows became larger and larger until suddenly there were cars with piles of trash on top of them. There were schools with piles of garbage outside of them larger than the houses further down the street. The garbage piles grew and grew until I was sure that this was as bad as it got.
And then we crossed over the bridge into the lower ninth ward. Here, the garbage wasn’t on the curbs. The houses were the garbage. Fallen, torn by the storm, collapsed, every building had a different death it seemed. Every building had died. No survivors. The whole of the Lower Ninth is garbage, ready to be bulldozed off by FEMA, or the city’s contractors, or the National Guard, or whoever has the hot potato of blame at the time.
But the one thing that I know is true is that New Orleans is not garbage. That sounds silly, but I know that there are people that owned that garbage, that loved it or built it or painted it. And as the piles of garbage grow larger, so do the losses of the invisible creators and owners of that garbage. The more garbage I see, the less those people have to live on.
So why am I here? To clear the garbage. To find the people that made or wanted or lost that garbage. Not to get them new garbage that will supposedly help them, but to get them out from behind all of this junk into new lives. I sound arrogant. Part of me says that I cannot do any of that. But I can help, or start, or hope. So here is my beginning- the garbage. See it, understand it, clear it, and find the people who know that the garbage that now defines the streets of New Orleans was the very same matter that filled the lives of the people who are trying to recover from the storm.
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September 4, 2006
Not much of the garbage in New Orleans was gone by the time I left. But some was, and people are working to clear more, both emotional and real. I gutted one house in New Orleans during a day off from my work at the clinic. Five feet in front of the house we were gutting sat another house that had floated from three blocks away. About a month after gutting, I returned to the neighborhood. Amazingly, FEMA had completely cleared the displaced house from the middle of the street. I couldn’t even recognize the street without it.
Though this garbage resulted from one of the thousands of houses uprooted from the storm, the clearing of this particular rubble gave me hope. Seeing a street clear of glass and debris, with homes on either side, roofs still blue with FEMA tarps and new FEMA trailers in the yards, was beautiful. Though imperfect, and nothing like it used to be, this street is home to people who are reclaiming their city.
May 21, 2006
Two nights in a row now there has been a homeless man lying in front of the entrance to my house when I walk in at night. There is a logical explanation for this. My home used to be a homeless shelter, where presumably this man used to live.
When Hurricane Katrina, ripped through New Orleans, the Brantley Center, a six-story building right off of Canal Street in the main business district downtown, was barely damaged. Only a couple of windows broke. But, the storm had a more subtle effect on the building. Where it used to house dozens, sometimes hundreds of homeless people every night, now it functions as temporary housing for volunteers that come down to help rebuild from the storm. There are no services offered for homeless persons in the building, supposedly because no services are needed for the supposedly smaller number of homeless people in the city since the storm.
Some, of course, have returned, including the man who has blocked my way home two nights in a row. It’s easy for me to recognize this need, this problem in the city. The problem is literally lying on my doorstep.
But I feel like the one that’s actually in the way. I am taking the bed of a person that needs it more than I do, because they have no other bed. I’m trying to help, but right now, I cannot sleep, eat, or work because I am overwhelmed by my surroundings. I’m just an observer, a helpless observer who’s in the way.
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September 4, 2006
The storm made many people observers. Few of these people have the chance of seeing the city with their own eyes and exploring the remains on their own terms. I had that chance. I am thankful. After returning from New Orleans, and passing the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with a flurry of media attention on the city, I have come to recognize the importance of being a good observer. Observers can share truth with those who cannot see it for themselves.
And thankfully, my internship in New Orleans allowed me to do more than observe. My involvement with the Common Ground Health Clinic gave me the chance to respond. This is an even more rare opportunity. Looking back, I feel blessed to not only have seen the damage, but also to have helped repair it in a real way. I may not have given the homeless man a bed, but I helped restore dignity to many poor people in New Orleans through providing them with quality, personal healthcare.
May 24, 2006
Yesterday, I told myself the following: Okay then, you won’t change the world.
This is type of declaration is uncharacteristic for me. Not only was I frustrated with the work I was doing for the clinic at that time, I didn’t feel like my work had any effect. No really, why am I, of all people, updating a resource guide of healthcare in New Orleans? Because I’m available and honestly, I’m the best they’ve got. But I am neither satisfied with my performance in this task nor with the poor manner in which the task fits my strengths. But, I do not get to pick what is needed. It is just needed. Honestly, I would prefer to doubt that this is needed, but I am not the expert, I got here ten days ago.
Back to the point- I feel pointless. I do not know why I am here. The work is hard, working is hard, and seeing the effects is impossible when I am working behind a computer. It is so obvious to me that the needs are great. There are HUGE disparities. There are gigantic problems. It feels like my skills and what I have to offer are so completely lacking in the face of these needs. I am so small and unknowledgeable about the city and the healthcare system and the world. And I am so impatient.
So that is it. The problems are too big for me. I cannot change them, at least not yet. So yesterday I tried to quit. I gave up hope for a second. I released myself from the one thing that I am here to do- help- because it is too hard. But in my heart, I know that this is entirely unacceptable.
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September 4, 2006
Be the change that you want to see in the world.
-Ghandi
Too often I see people giving up on themselves and their chance to change the world. This became most real to me when I gave up on myself. It was then that it became clear to me that this hopelessness, this loss of self-confidence is what I what to change. In short, if you give people hope in themselves, they can change the world. Therefore I must first embody this change of heart. So, I could continue to approach change as if I cannot make a damn bit of difference on my own, which is fairly accurate. Or, I can make change bigger than myself. I can approach change as a effort to empower other to view themselves as change agents, to say, “Hey, we can change the world.”
June 3, 2006
I had my first patient yesterday. Mr. Gibson came into the clinic to get his lab results from an earlier appointment. While he was waiting to see the doctor, he asked me where he could get an eye exam. I began calling places right away. Even after working on updating the clinic’s resource guide for three weeks, it took me over half an hour on the phone to find out that there were no free eye exams in the city of New Orleans. The cheapest eye exam on the West Bank is $50, and it is only this cheap because the clinic has specifically asked this doctor to make a discount for our patients. I figured this out after Mr. Gibson left the clinic.
I had gotten his phone number while he was still at the clinic. He had said that he was available for an appointment any time that week. I told him that I would help him out, got his info and suddenly, he was my patient. I couldn’t just let him leave, but it didn’t occur to me that holding myself to this standard of care would immediately make his healthcare my responsibility. But it did. So I made an appointment for him the next day for $50 dollars. I called him at home and told him, but he didn’t have $50. Uh oh.
By this point, I was willing to give my own money to bring this man to the ophthalmologist. Luckily, many people who work at the clinic feel the same way. The clinic itself runs a direct action fund, wherein Mr. Gibson, or any patient, can have outside services paid for or subsidized by the clinic. After discussing his case with other clinic workers, I (who had been there for a measly three weeks) was given the responsibility to determine whether or not Mr. Gibson was eligible for this type of aid. I decided he was, due to the complications in his vision that could be caused by his diabetes, and of course, his inability to pay. So I got $50 out of the days’ donation jar and put it in my pocket. And the next day I got up early to bring the money to the eye clinic on the West Bank before going to the clinic.
Mr. Gibson had his eye appointment. He was a diabetic, had implants and was supposed to have an appointment before the storm. And he had it today, ten months later.
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September 4, 2006
Looking back, I realize that I did not do enough for Mr. Gibson. I assume that he went to his appointment, but the clinic never heard back from him or the ophthalmologist’s office, to my knowledge. I told him that if he needed help to buy new glasses, he could come back to the clinic. I gave him my phone number.
But, I should have gone to the appointment with him, brought a copy of his medical files to the appointment, made sure that we got a copy of the visit’s results in his file back at the clinic. I should have followed up with phone calls and even a visit to his home two weeks or a month later. It makes me sick that I don’t even know if Mr. Gibson had the money to pay for the gas to drive to the doctor.
I will have more Mr. Gibsons. Many more. With them I hope that I can retain the same enthusiasm that I had for helping to treat my first patient. In addition to enthusiasm, the experience of having many patients will enhance my ability to help every new one. Right now, I only wish that I had the piece of scrap paper out of my scrubs pocket with Mr. Gibson’s phone number scribbled crookedly across the paper from that day. Since I cannot have that, I only hope that Mr. Gibson had his eye appointment, and that my regret will fuel a commitment to my future patients that ensures their health instead of my own sense of accomplishment.
June 8, 2006
A woman walked into the clinic today and asked us to tape a five-dollar bill that she had that was ripped in half. I love the clinic. But our patients are so poor that their money doesn’t even work.
At about the same time a young man walked in and asked for directions on how to get to the traffic court. I am happy to know that we our doors are open to the community and we are trusted. But our neighborhood, Algiers, suffers a higher rate of crime than much of the rest of the city. I am reminded of when a teenager shot a cop two blocks from the clinic and the same police that pulled over this young man sped past our block in a stampede of sirens.
A couple came for the second time and remembered my name and said hello and goodbye as they left. I am touched that we are developing individual relationship with our patients and growing roots in the community. But people come here because the healthcare system, the corporate world, and the government have failed to help them.
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September 4, 2006
Common Ground Health Clinic is making a difference in Algiers and New Orleans. But we have stepped into a corrupt, disheveled, and unfair world that has demanded our existence, a world that should not exist according to our values. So we are stuck, existing because we must, when we shouldn’t have to.
posted by Unknown @ 2:19 PM
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