Barefoot Doctors’ Academy
Hurricane Disaster Relief Projects
Written by Dee Anne Domnick
The Saturday night before the storm, I left my home and
office in Lacombe, Louisiana and headed up to where I thought would be safe, at a friend’s
place north of Covington. Late night news showed differently, and before dawn
on Sunday morning I received a call from Richard Caldwell, urging me to drive
four and a half hours west and meet them in Grand Couteau, Louisiana, which I
did.
Before and during Hurricane Katrina, a small delegation of
the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy (BFDA) developed a rapid-response
strategy, from a safe distance at the edge of the storm. Looking up from a
field in Grand Couteau, the outer band of the storm was a clearly defined
curving edge directly above. The Virgin Mary appeared across the field,
standing in the doorway of a strangers’ home. To make sure that I wasn’t seeing
things, I brought Tika to see, and miracle of miracles, she could see her
plainly, too.
The First Few Days
In our ‘Mobile Response Unit’, Bill Queenan and I were the
team. Our initial focus was on communications and resource coordination for
evacuation, food, clean water, and shelter. My dear Rainbow brother, Felipe,
called with plans to come down from Wisconsin with a school-bus full of food, a large kitchen and
other emergency supplies, to join our efforts. Since the Barefoot Doctors’
Academy was setting up alignments with the shelters that already had kitchens, I
eventually directed Filipe to Waveland, Mississippi. Communications were down in
that area, but I knew from what I had seen on radar that Waveland would have
been hit extremely hard and may not be getting the support that larger towns
would receive.
First Six Weeks
The American Red Cross granted me the opportunity to serve
as the coordinator of maternal/infant welfare for evacuees across the entire
state, as they (nor any other agency) had any one to focalize aid for this
population. First I was given access to survivors being admitted to The
River Center in Baton Rouge, which had rapidly become the largest shelter in
Louisiana, bursting at the seams with approximately 7,500 refugees. During the
first week, the shelter was in mass chaos, packed with families lining the
hallways and auditoriums, sleeping on concrete floors. Initially, even pregnant
woman, babies, the sick and elderly had no option other than to sleep on the
concrete. While the medically needy crammed the make-shift waiting room, medical
volunteers from around the country tried their best to take care of the most
urgent first.
Immediately I began making arrangements for volunteers and
supplies to come in. I notified MANA (the Midwives Alliance of North America)
of the situation and they put out a notice via e-mail to their membership and
other related organizations. At once my cell phone and e-mail were being
inundated with offers of help from around the world. (Even a midwife from Peru
had contacted me).
I would awaken to the sound of the phone wringing each
morning. Caffeine became my new allie. I’d spend 5 or so hours making and
answering calls from my new office in Baton Rouge (thank you very much new
blessed friend Liza Caldwell), drive to the River Center and do another 8 or 9
hours of prenatal care and social work, then return to my office and spend
several more hours doing office work: e-mails, making travel arrangements,
creating a master plan and system with forms, signs, name-tags, etc., till I
dropped from exhaustion in the wee hours of the morning. Eighteen-hour work
days were the minimum norm, seven days per week.
Our recovery focus was aimed at arranging for medical
assistance and relocation for families containing pregnant women, infants, small
children, the disabled and elderly, as our target priorities. We identified the
most needy of the survivors in the above categories who had been brought to
shelters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and surrounding areas. As our volunteer
numbers grew, we widened our outreach area. We had 27 volunteers (mostly
midwives) who worked with us on this project out of the River Center and
multiple other shelters and help-sites in Louisiana.
An untold number of deliveries had occurred in strange
places after the wrath of Katrina, including a baby born along the side of the
highway leaving New Orleans, another born on the moving escalator at the
River Center shelter, and twins born in an ambulance after their helicopter transport could
not reach a hospital in time. Our volunteers were able to get many expectant
women safely settled into their desired destinations before they gave birth.
It was a monumental task, as the numbers were so great!
We collectively did thousands of hours of prenatal and
postpartum care and education. Our tasks did not end there, however. We
identified many other needs, from reuniting mothers separated from their
premature babies, distributing information, food and supplies, to giving
500-mile car rides to stranded disabled elderly folks. We providing translation
services, as many of the shelter tenants spoke absolutely no English and many of
our volunteers were bilingual. A tremendous amount of coordination was involved
in the relocation of evacuees and our incoming medical personnel. One of our
pregnant CNM’s accompanied a group of single mothers (one being a post c-section
mom with her toddler and premature baby) and families safely to there new homes
in Illinois.
Pregnant mothers in shelters were requesting and praying
for better circumstances to bring their newborns home to, beyond the plight of
the cots and concrete floors of the crowded shelters. In many circumstances
their presence seemed to go almost unnoticed amongst the thousands of other
survivors whom they shared the same roof with. This changed with the arrival of
midwives from across the continent.
Midwives
were met with open arms and gratitude by medical personnel at all levels---from
the overwhelmed volunteer Red Cross workers and make-shift emergency wards to
the stressed Department of Public Health. No agency on the planet could have
ever been prepared for such a catastrophe. Barriers seem to melt away as the
facade of bureaucracy was humbled.
Liza Caldwell (Richard’s niece, whom I met after the
storm), a wonderful person and incredible graphic artist, became my right hand,
keeping me on line while offering her services in making name tags, business
cards and beautiful posters to inform survivors of our services. She also
graciously offered her home to homeless volunteers, including myself (my Lacombe
property was hit hard) and created an incredible office space in Baton Rouge for
the BFDA hotline and administrative services. Louisiana midwife Emmy Trammell also
opened her home to homeless ones and a Barefoot Doctors' Academy Hotline and coordination office
center in Hammond, LA. We had social workers, drivers, doctors, midwives,
childbirth educators, doulas*, lactation consultants, and La Leche League
leaders join our team. *You can share in the experiences of one
of our volunteer doula's daily perspectives by logging onto: http://downsouth.joyfuljourneys.org/
One of our tasks was to coordinate arrangements for those
in need to travel with Amtrak or private plane owners at no charge, reuniting
families that had been separated in the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. When no
family or friends existed to take in those who had lost everything they owned,
we found open hearts across the country to take in the homeless. Arrangements
were made for free medical care, support services, housing, furniture, food and
clothing, and offers to help with finding jobs and other sources of income,
education, and job training.
In this great time of need, the spirit of love prevailed.
Never had I seen such support and caring by such a large number of people.
Among other things, we received over 300 hand-quilted baby blankets that our
midwives distributed.
On October 10th, 2005, the River Center Shelter
in Baton Rouge closed for most all but a few hundred of the disabled and most
needy, so BFDA’s Perinatal Clinic prepared to relocate to New Orleans.
Washington Square
It was about 6 weeks after the storm and the City of New
Orleans was about to officially begin allowing people to return to check on
their homes, although each area was to have different curfew times.
After establishing the incredible New Waveland Café
in Waveland, Mississippi, Felipe was ready to pass that site on to the wonderful
Rainbow volunteers who had also brought kitchen equipment and had been helping.
With ample supplies and more rolling in, he wanted to establish another kitchen
as there were so many places in desperate need. We decided the time was ripe
for us to join together to establish a clinic and kitchen in New Orleans.
Since I was a long-time resident of Louisiana and had lived
in New Orleans for a number of years, we met up in the city to search for the
best site. I had Washington Square in mind, but we explored multiple options
before agreeing that the square would be the best site. Its location in the
Faubourg Marigny, between the ninth ward and the French Quarter was ideal, as
the Faubourg was still pretty much shut down with the majority of residents and
business owners still relocated to other regions. My friend’s place in the
Faubourg had already been broken into thee times since the storm.
The area had not flooded badly and was relatively not a
chemical hazard compared to many of the other places that we had looked at. We
decided that for health reasons, it would be wise to provide food and medical
care in an area that had fresh air, no toxic spills and few flies and mosquitos.
We were close enough to hard hit areas where people were returning to gut their
mold-saturated homes, that they could access us easily for three square meals
per day, supplies, and/or medical treatment.
After making numerous calls to secure the site legally, I
received a call from the so-called Director of the New Orleans Department of
Health. She asked me numerous questions and then asked if I would set up a
primary care clinic in New Orleans. I agreed---as long as I could have an
adjunct kitchen to serve the people and that we could set up in Washington
Square. She asked more questions (about the kitchen, this time) and then
agreed. I asked if she had the authority to give us access to the park. She
was situated in the Emergency Operation Center, headquartered in the N.O. Hyatt,
along with multiple other agencies. After a brief conference, she declared that
yes, indeed she had the authority. The park was unlocked later that day, and
after an intensive park clean-up over the week-end, a corner of the park was
cleared enough that we were able to begin providing care and serving food. We
prioritized clearing the children’s playground zone of the park and within 2
days, children began coming to play in the safe and protected area. We had a
grand opening on October 10th with the New Orleans Jazz Vipers
performing for the occasion.
News spread on a N.O. blog, and soon more and more citizens
began to return to the city. Many people had come up and let us know that the
news of our presence had given them the courage to return. Others expressed
their gratitude for not only the services, but the sense of community that we
helped to create in their neighborhood. We had also succeeded in being able to
draw people away from the foulness into a fresh, open air, green venue to
commune and re-energize.
Over the next 2 months, we treated thousands medically and
served approximately 30,000 hot meals! Volunteers had come from near and far.
Aside from the dozens of kitchen helpers, medical volunteers included nurses,
medical doctors, herbalists, midwives, acupuncturists, psychologists, massage
therapists, music therapists, and E.M.T.s, as well as social workers, clergy,
and comedians. We also had a distribution site that provided free food,
spring water,
clothing, shoes, blankets, personal hygiene supplies, cleaning supplies, etc.
We continued to cleanup the park, clearing out dozens of
truckloads of downed trees, limbs and debris. When we pulled out from that
location on December 1st, the New Orleans Park and Parkways
representative gave us the highest ratings for clean-up over any of the other
relief groups and declared she had never seen the park so clean.
Mid City
After December 1st, the Barefoot Doctors Academy
(BFDA) relocated to the devastated neighborhood of Bayou St. John/Mid-city in
New Orleans and sponsored three hot meals a day to neighborhood residents and
contractors who had begun the rebuilding process. At this location, BFDA also
housed a clothing distribution center, first-aid station and sponsored Christmas
Toys and Children Books Giveaways.
Ninth Ward
The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy continued to providing supplies
to the busy kitchen affiliated with Common Ground located at St. Mary of the
Angels on Congress Street in the hard hit east ninth ward of New
Orleans.
Emergency Kits
The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy maintains an “Emergency Kit’
for rapid response in the unfortunate event of future disasters. This kit
is currently situated in a non-flood area in South-Central Louisiana.
Another kit is being developed in North Kohala of ‘the Big Island’ of Hawai’i. These
kits include medical supplies, water filtration systems, protective gear,
communication equipment, large tents, and other rapid response emergency
necessities.
Emergency Teams
For going on 25 years, the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy has
been training individuals in the important arts of barefoot doctoring and
midwifery. If you are interested in training with us and/or would like to join
one of our teams, e-mail us at:
barefootmd@aol.com Other than medical personnel, we periodically have need
for ham radio operators, search and rescue crew, clean water experts, cooks and
kitchen help, community organizers, gardeners and other food suppliers, and
plain hard-working folks!
During the Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita aftermaths,
the Barefoot Doctors' Academy worked in
cooperation with the:
Rainbow Family of Living Light
International Medical Corps
World Shelters
American Red Cross
Safe Harbor International Relief
Organic Valley
City of New Orleans
Louisiana Himalaya Association
CommonGround
Southern District LCMS Disaster Relief
Team
Southern Baptists Convention Disaster
Relief
First Baptist of Baton Rouge
First United Baptist Church-N.O.
St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
St. Jude Community Center
Catholic Charities
Humanity First
Teamsters, Local Union No. 270
Tulane University
LSU Health Sciences Center
Bill Clinton & Dee Anne Domnick at the River Center Shelter in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina
Second Harvest
Baton Rouge Food Bank
Fresh Market-Mandeville
Angel Flights
Brothers’ Keeper
Amtrack
National Guard
Apple Blossom Consultants
Seneca Software & Solar
Food Not Bombs
Louisiana Association of Non-profits
Four Directions Relief Project
Acupuncturists Without Borders
Pyramid Audio
and numerous other organizations, families and individuals
to help ensure a brighter future for people in desperate need.
Special thanks
go to the Domnick, Gilbert and Berg families for their very generous
contributions. Many thanks to all of you!
We are still in need of donations!
Our 501(c)3 enables you to make tax deductible donations,
which can be sent to:
The Barefoot Doctors' Academy
P.O. Box 371
Hawi, HI 96719
For more information, contact: Dee Anne Domnick @
(808)987-8213
or e-mail her at barefootmd@aol.com
You can share in the experiences of one of our volunteer
doula's daily
perspectives by logging onto:
http://downsouth.joyfuljourneys.org/