New Orleans feels pain of mental health crisis

Sixteen months after Hurricane Katrina tore this city apart, a hidden sort of damage is emerging. Local officials see it in reports of suicides, strokes and stress-related deaths. They see it in the police calls for fights and domestic violence. They see it in the long waiting lists for psychiatric care that they have no way to provide.

These days, life in the Big Easy isn't easy at all. Everyone from the mayor to the people staffing the public health clinics sees it: New Orleans is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis — and the city has no way to deal with it.


The obvious problems only fuel the more subtle ones. About half of the city's 450,000 pre-Katrina residents have yet to return, according to the mayor's office, and entire neighborhoods remain filled with boarded-up homes and businesses. For those who have come back, everything is hard, and the challenges seem endless: lining up contractors, getting basic services restored, even finding neighborhood places to buy groceries, clothes and gasoline.

Now, many fear the situation could worsen. "This couple of months is our most critical time period. … New Year's, Mardi Gras, Easter, and if people need (mental health) services right now, there really is almost no place to go," says Kevin Stephens, director of the city Health Department.


"We've got families that have been split up for months, families that lost their homes, crammed in small trailers. … People have lost their jobs, their support system," he adds. "There's a heaviness. And we're seeing a much, much higher incidence of mental illness."

How bad is the situation? The suicide rate in the first four months after Katrina rose almost 300% over pre-storm levels, according to coroner's office statistics. In a survey after the hurricane by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26% of respondents said at least one person in their family needed mental health counseling — but less than 2% were getting any. Even now, police data show that emergency calls involving people who need psychiatric treatment continue to come in at a rate about 15% higher than before Katrina.

from USA Today