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Nurses Help Out 'Big Easy'

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By PAULINE ARRILLAGA, The Associated Press

Published: January 14, 2008

NEW ORLEANS - The sign on the gate in front of the blue house announced the good news to a neighborhood that has had little since Hurricane Katrina: "There's a doctor in the house. Make your appointment NOW!"
Earl Davis paused to take in the words, then headed up the ramp and through the door - destined for his first doctor visit since returning to the city five months earlier.

The family practitioner who treated him as a boy, then saw Davis' own kids, left after the storm and isn't coming back. Hundreds of other doctors have gone the same route.

Charity Hospital, which for generations provided care to the poor and uninsured, sits like a darkened tomb on a downtown street, plywood blocking the main entryway, window shades twisted and broken.

But the blue house at the corner of St. Claude Avenue and Egania Street is open for business, dispensing free health care to anyone in need.

The Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic is its official name now.

Before Katrina, this was Patricia Berryhill's home. The living room where her kids congregated after school serves as a waiting area now, its walls painted a peaceful powder blue. The bedrooms are exam cubicles, the kitchen a file room and office.

Berryhill, a registered nurse, still spends almost every day at 5228 St. Claude, working as medical director of the clinic.

Another registered nurse, Alice Craft-Kerney, runs the business side as the clinic's executive director. She grew up in the Ninth Ward, and rode out Katrina in her brother's house a mere three blocks away.

In 2005, when Katrina struck, Berryhill was managing the high-risk obstetrics and gynecology unit at University Hospital while Kerney was a supervisor for trauma, surgery and the prison ward at Charity Hospital.
Berryhill was assigned to the medical team that stayed behind during the storm; Kerney was delegated to another group that was to relieve the first.

Eventually, both wound up evacuated from the city - and they returned to a health care system in shambles.

Charity, its basement flooded, was closed. University was shuttered for more than a year, though doctors temporarily offered care from a tent. In some neighborhoods, medical workers took to bicycles in search of patients.
Berryhill put in for retirement and considered teaching. Meanwhile, she had to look for a new place to live. Her home on St. Claude Avenue was structurally sound on the outside but wrecked inside.
Kerney was furloughed but found work for an agency doing per-diem nursing wherever she could. She reconnected with Berryhill.

At the beginning of 2006, Kerney met some people working with Common Ground, a volunteer organization established in the aftermath of Katrina.

Michelle Shin, the coordinator of services in the Lower Ninth Ward, told Kerney about a group that wanted to donate as much as $35,000 to help rebuild a family's home, but Shin and Kerney envisioned some type of project that instead would benefit the entire community.

Shin suggested a clinic, immediately asking Kerney: "What do you think about spearheading it?"

"I wouldn't want to do it without my friend Pat," the nurse replied.
Kerney and Berryhill vividly recall the first patient who came through the doors: a woman so ill that she passed out and lost control of her bodily functions. The nurses suspected the woman was suffering from severe respiratory problems because of the mold and mildew, but her condition was too dire for their small shop. They called 911.

The incident only proved to Kerney, "We were sorely needed here. Every day."

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