Tina Abbott was already having trouble figuring out her medical problems. She had pain from torn tissue in her arm, a cyst in her spine, and chronic breathing problems that required a portable oxygen tank, which she bought by refinancing her car.
Then Hurricane Helen hit western North Carolina, forcing me to cancel my lab work appointment. When three volunteer doctors arrived at her home several days later, the 67-year-old Abbott was sitting in her dark living room with no reliable cell phone service or running water.
With the area effectively shut down, she worried about how she would be able to get supplemental oxygen and blood tests to monitor the effects of many medications on her organs.
“If this goes on forever, it’s going to be a problem,” she told the volunteer doctors.
Even before storms unleashed flooding in this part of the Appalachian Mountains, this largely rural region was home to many people in poor health and often had difficulty accessing medical care. And while North Carolina’s recent Medicaid expansion has made health insurance available to even more residents with limited incomes, the hurricane damage is hampering that progress, at least for now.
This storm is one of the deadliest in this country’s history. After making landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast in late September, Helen crisscrossed the Southeast, killing more than 200 people and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses. The damage was particularly severe in western North Carolina, where floodwaters swept away entire communities and destroyed much of the mountainous infrastructure.
“Western North Carolina’s health care infrastructure is already extremely weak,” said North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Cody H. Kinsley. He added that the hurricane “shined a bright light on an already fragile system.”
Several hospitals in both North Carolina and Tennessee remain closed, including one in Irwin, Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff had to be rescued the day the storm hit. Included.
In western North Carolina, some hospitals still rely on bottled water and mobile water dispensers.
Asheville hospitals still lack potable water, with more than 200,000 gallons being pumped to the hospital each day from tanks, said Nancy Lindell, a spokeswoman for North Carolina Mission Health.
In a region that already has difficulty recruiting and retaining medical staff, some health care providers are also concerned about the impact of lost revenue and supporting staff who may have suffered casualties from the storm.
“How do we get people into the region at this point?” said Kim Wagenaar, chief executive officer of Western North Carolina Regional Health Services, which serves 13 counties in the region. She added: “It will take a long time to truly mitigate the effects of this disaster.”
Health disparities in Appalachia can be traced in part to the 2008 recession. The recession took an economic toll, and many of the region’s rural communities have not fully recovered. Rising poverty levels have increased health problems such as depression and addiction.
“When things like this happen in vulnerable communities, they tend to have worse outcomes and recovery is more difficult,” said Michael Mate, director of East Tennessee State University’s Center for Rural Health Research.
The storm’s aftermath can lead to new health problems, including injuries sustained during cleanup and problems with contaminated water. Health officials urged storm survivors and those working to remove debris from flood-damaged homes to take extra precautions. For example, dust from mud can worsen asthma and breathing problems.
Many residents are also experiencing psychological stress, including grief, loss and trauma, with the state’s death toll reaching nearly 100. Even the constant sound of helicopters delivering relief supplies overhead is making people anxious. One doctor said fears were heightened by the economic damage many residents suffered after the storm claimed homes, cars and jobs.
Immediately after the storm, 60-year-old Richard Ball was helping his sister-in-law remove some of the debris that had flooded inside their home. He said he had two heart attacks earlier this year, adding: “When I get tired, I’m going to sit down.”
His sister-in-law, Brenda Ball, still had a bruise and cut above her right eye from a fall a few days earlier. However, he was unable to receive medical treatment because his car was crushed under the collapsed part of his house.
Dozens of volunteer doctors, nurses and psychologists are driving or flying into the region to treat people who still lack reliable transportation, roads and access to health care. Volunteers say their work aims not only to ease the burden on local emergency personnel and hospitals, but also to document health issues among residents at a time when regular appointments are difficult to get.
Pat Tucker, 61, an emergency doctor in Oxford, Michigan, said when he knocked on the door of Abbott, 67, who had several medical problems, “I was just chomping at the bit to get out of here.” Ta. Her front door in Swannanoa, one of the hardest hit towns. He, along with two Asheville-area family doctors, gently questioned her about her health issues, made sure neighbors could help her, and promised to see if she could get an oxygen regulator.
In Swannanoa, a city of about 5,500 residents, athletic trainers, school nurses and many family health professionals have been working in church parking lots to set up a temporary clinic, refilling medications, administering supplemental oxygen, and replenishing medications. scrutinized the reports of the necessary residents. Insulin or just a health check.
Pharmacists ran from store to store, calling in prescriptions and determining the best way to distribute them. Health care workers say some people are experiencing withdrawal symptoms because they can no longer get access to their regular addiction medication or the drug they were addicted to.
About a month after the storm, the makeshift clinic was seeing about 500 patients, not including home visits. “You just jump in and figure out how to do it,” said Shanda Bradley, 47, an athletic trainer from suburban Asheville.
Kinsley said the work the volunteers are doing could help build trust in health care providers in communities with a high degree of independence.
“True health care access moves at the speed of trust,” he said, adding, “It’s going to be a long journey.”
