Mississippi Nurse covers 280 miles to serve patients
May 2, 2008
New Orleans, Louisiana (WiredPRNews.com) — If you think commuting 20 miles daily to a job is a hectic schedule, imagine commuting 280 miles on a daily basis. That exactly what Mississippi-based nurse Nonna Bullock does, and she does it for the love of her job. Bullock says that working four days in New Orleans is not what she had dreamed of in medical school, but it was more of a choice-based decision. She says, “The people of New Orleans needed me.”
Bullock is among those nurses that make a sacrificial decision of working at Tulane Medical Center in the Katrina-ravaged city of New Orleans. Bullock says, “I saw how difficult it was to keep up; they needed more nurses, more hospital beds and more doctors down here. I was up for the challenge.”
With the closure of six major hospitals after Hurricane Katrina, Tulane Medical Center was left to take care of overflowing patients. Other hospitals like East Jefferson General faced a steep reduction in medical staff. Around 100 nurses left East Jefferson General after Katrina hit the city.
According to the emergency department director at Tulane, Dr. James Moises, “Every time I come to work, it’s a challenge. Not a challenge in trying to make the patient better, but a challenge in terms of logistics. The system is so stretched, we have to look outside for nursing staff and physicians.”
Wired Special Interest Reporter
