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Reaching Out to Aid the Elderly, Frail: Team works to screen, place those who need attention in area care centers
By Melanie Markley
and Cynthia Leonor Garza, Houston Chronicle
September 9,
2005
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Jessica Kourkounis / Chronicle
Myrtle Ichante, left, 91, and Sarah Greenberg, 90, both evacuees
from
New Orleans
, found a place to stay at a nursing home in the Spring area.
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Nursing homes and other facilities in the Houston area are opening their doors to hundreds of Louisiana's most vulnerable storm victims: the elderly, the frail and the mentally impaired who can't care for themselves.
More than 1,000 Hurricane Katrina victims have been admitted to nursing homes throughout Texas, according to the state's Department of Aging and Disability Services. In the Houston area, more than 400 are receiving nursing home care.
Health care professionals also have been working nonstop at the Reliant Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center to identify people requiring special attention.
Dr. Carmel Bitondo Dyer, chief of geriatrics for the Harris County Hospital District, said a team has been screening seniors at the Astrodome to make sure they receive medical care and necessary services.
Many, she said, can't advocate for themselves because they are confused and disoriented in their new surroundings. Many also came without their medication and have health problems.
"It's very hard in that environment if you are a frail senior," said Dyer, also an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine. "We have to consider them as vulnerable and in need of protection as children."
Maria Quintero, a psychologist and an assistant deputy director with the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County, said a team of professionals also are identifying people with developmental disabilities who need specialized care.
"As people are identified, we assist them," she said, adding that two people with mental retardation so far have been placed in the Richmond State School.
Lynne Cleveland, board chairman for the MHMRA of Harris County, said part of the problem has been identifying people with special needs whose families have scattered to smaller shelters or private locations - away from the centralized health care teams set up to assist them.
Kept in quiet area
At the convention center, people with mental and developmental disabilities have been kept in a quiet, curtained-off area so they are not over-stimulated by the shelter's noise and confusion.
After staying with more than 20 other family members in a hotel and later in two shelters, Julian Hatcher, who has cerebral palsy and can't communicate except for small gestures, was finally getting the help he needed at the convention center.
"He's not coping too well," said his aunt, Veronica Young, motioning to the 22-year-old's fidgeting arms and creased forehead. "Like right now, he's restless."
Officials are hoping to place the family in an apartment within the next few days.
While mental illnesses and disabilities vary widely, "a crisis like this has the potential of exacerbating someone's illness," said Betsy Schwartz, executive director for the Mental Health Association of Greater Houston.
Advocates involved with the community partnership Care for Elders also worried that the constant noise and disruptions at the large shelters were causing many older people to suffer sleep deprivation and other problems.
Volunteers patrolled the floor of the Astrodome on the lookout for at-risk elderly people. Jan Edwards, director of case management for Sheltering Arms, recalls one woman who was taken to the clinic and put on intravenous fluids after a nurse found her lying on her cot, completely dehydrated.
"If this nurse had not found her and recognized what was going on with her, the lady would have been just peacefully lying there, and she probably would have died," Edwards said.
Throughout the area, nursing homes with available beds have been accepting elderly residents who were either evacuated from nursing homes in the New Orleans area or arrived in Houston needing specialized care.
Nursing home administrators say the residents run the gamut from private payers to Medicaid-funded, and they don't expect a problem getting reimbursed.
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