Dear Mr. President,

My name is Richard and I work in one of the large hospitals here in downtown New Orleans and I would like to share not a story, but rather, a perspective.

Working in an urban hospital in New Orleans has been one of the most eye-opening experiences of my entire life. Coming from Dallas, TX where there are dozens of beautiful hotel-esque hospitals it was a real shock to come to downtown New Orleans and see the sad state of healthcare here. I see the homeless and destitute wondering the streets, many of who have little to no access to preventative healthcare at all.

Everyday on my way to work I see the giant Charity Hospital. This hospital, prior to Hurricane Katrina was once one of the largest charity hospitals (for the indigent population) in the country and now it's no more than another condemned buidling with the state having no real plans to re-open it. This hospital was a beautiful art-deco building that was the center of academic medical teaching here in the entire state and now it just sits there rotting away because of a lack of funding for healthcare in Louisiana.

As a result of this, the remaining hospitals in downtown now have to absorb all of the self-pay, non-insured patients, many of whom possess complex pathologies and aliments. These patients absolutely drain hospitals of their financial resources and drive prices higher and higher.

Furthermore, the VA Hospital in downtown New Orleans is also closed as a result of Katrina. Where are our veterans that so valliantly defended our country supposed to go to get their healthcare? As so many of them are also uninsured, they also take a toll on the hospitals that have had to absorb them as well.

And while some hospitals really struggle there are the few that have done well, but they have done well because we live in a de facto socio-political segregated community where a vast majority of insured patients go to the hospitals that are away from downtown. They feast while other hospitals starve.

Mr President, if you wish to see a microcosm of how broken our healthcare system is, I beg you to come to New Orleans and see first hand what people, both patients and in the healthcare profession, must deal with.

Thank you for you time and best of luck.

Sincerely,
Richard Leal