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38–986 PDF 2008

S. Hrg. 110–481 

POST-CATASTROPHE CRISIS: ADDRESSING 

THE DRAMATIC NEED AND SCANT 

AVAILABILITY OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE 

IN THE GULF COAST 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 31, 2007 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana, Chairman 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

DONNY WILLIAMS, Staff Director 

APRILLE RAABE, Minority Staff Director 

AMANDA FOX, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Landrieu .............................................................................................. 1 

Senator Stevens ................................................................................................ 10 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2007 

A. Kathryn Power, M.Ed., Director, Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department 

of Health and Human Services ........................................................................... 10 

Anthony H. Speier, Ph.D., Director, Disaster Mental Health Operations, Office of Mental Health, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals .......... 18 

Jan M. Kasofsky, Ph.D., Executive Director, Capital Area Human Services 

District, Baton Rouge, Louisiana ........................................................................ 20 

Kevin U. Stephens, Sr., M.D., J.D., Director, New Orleans Health Department ...................................................................................................................... 22 

Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D., Professor of Healthcare Policy, Harvard Medical 

School, and Principal Investigator of the Hurricane Katrina Community 

Advisory Group ..................................................................................................... 29 

Howard J. Osofsky, M.D., Ph.D., Kathleen and John Bricker Chair of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Louisiana State University Health Sciences 

Center .................................................................................................................... 31 

Mark H. Townsend, M.D., DFAPA, Professor and Vice Chairman for General 

Psychiatry, Director of Psychiatry, Medical Center of Louisiana at New 

Orleans .................................................................................................................. 33 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Kasofsky, Jan M., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 20 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 71 

Kessler, Ronald C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 29 

Prepared statement with an attachment ....................................................... 100 

Osofsky, Howard J., M.D., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 31 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 113 

Power, A. Kathryn, M.Ed.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 41 

Speier, Anthony H., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58 

Stephens, Kevin U. Sr., M.D., J.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 22 

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 93 

Townsend, Mark H., M.D., DFAPA: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 33 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 117 

APPENDIX 

‘‘Trends in mental illness and suicidality after Hurricane Katrina,’’ September 

2007, by Ronald C. Kessler, Sandro Galea, Michael J. Gruber, Nancy A. 

Sampson, Robert J. Ursano, and Simon Wessely .............................................. 120 

Page

IV 

Michael A. Zieman, FACHE, Administrator of Memorial Behavioral Health, 

Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, Mississippi, prepared statement ................... 152 

Lafayette Parish School System, prepared statement .......................................... 155 

East Baton Rouge Parish Schools, Baton Rouge, LA, prepared statement ........ 156 

Monroe City School District, Monroe, LA, prepared statement ........................... 157 

World Health Organization, December 2006, Bulletin ......................................... 159 

‘‘The Louisiana Model for a Local System of Care,’’ report from the Capital 

Area Human Services District ............................................................................ 169 

Chart entitled ‘‘Mental Health Resources in New Orleans,’’ submitted for 

the Record by Senator Landrieu ......................................................................... 175 

Chart entitled ‘‘SAMHSA Funding to Gulf Coast in Fiscal Year 2006,’’ submitted for the Record by Senator Landrieu ....................................................... 176 

(1) 

POST-CATASTROPHE CRISIS: ADDRESSING 

THE DRAMATIC NEED AND SCANT 

AVAILABILITY OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE 

IN THE GULF COAST 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2007 

U.S. SENATE,

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m., in Room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mary Landrieu, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Landrieu and Stevens. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANDRIEU 

Senator LANDRIEU. Good afternoon. The Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery will come to order. 

When I became Chairman of the Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery at the beginning of this year, I promised that this Subcommittee would work to create the most effective disaster response and recovery system possible, streamlining current processes, designing brand-new tools, where necessary, promoting better coordination between government at all levels, the private sector, and the nonprofit community, particularly as it relates to dealing with catastrophic disasters. 

With the help of my Ranking Member, Ted Stevens, this Subcommittee has held five hearings since its inception in March 2007. 

Our first hearing was basically an overhead snapshot of the current situation, urgent steps toward fixing the recovery process led 

off by testimony from GAO. The second was a hearing entitled ‘‘Beyond Trailers: Creating a More Flexible, Efficient, and Cost-Effective Federal Disaster Housing Program,’’ examining a more efficient, cost-effective way to handle the Federal disaster housing program. Our third hearing was ‘‘Repairing the Road Home Program,’’ 

trying to help literally hundreds of thousands of homeowners and 

renters get back to their communities and their neighborhoods. Our 

fourth was a hearing on problems with FEMA’s public assistance 

program entitled ‘‘FEMA’s Project Work Sheets: Removing the 

Most Obvious Obstacles to Our Recovery.’’ And, last, just less than 

a month ago, I had the privilege of hosting a field hearing in Anchorage, Alaska with Senator Stevens actually looking at a pending 

disaster of coastal erosion on the northwestern shore of Alaska at 

2 

a small fishing village, Shishmaref, where the impacts of coastal 

erosion were clear and dramatic. 

Through these hearings, we have been able to create a narrative 

that tells a story that I think is very compelling and one that this 

country needs to hear and absorb, and that is that our country’s 

disaster response mechanism lacks the muscle and the flexibility 

necessary to prevent and ward off disasters as well as to facilitate 

the long-term recovery of impacted communities, particularly from 

catastrophic disasters. 

Only last week, we saw the heroic efforts of first responders in 

California as they battled the massive fires that destroyed over 

500,000 acres. The dramatic images of this fire, as well as this 

morning’s 5.2 magnitude earthquake in the Bay Area, reminds us 

that disasters can and will strike anywhere, that no place in the 

United States is immune. 

The Federal Government appears to have applied some of the 

lessons learned from the 2005 hurricane and subsequent levee failures. However, we have to understand that putting out those fires, 

as horrible as they are, and which tragically claimed 1,676 homes, 

250 businesses, and it took 16 lives, which is horrific to even think 

about those numbers, but the comparison, if you will, to Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita that destroyed 266,000 homes, 18,000 businesses, 

and killed nearly 1,700 people, is what this Subcommittee has focused a good bit of its time and attention on. 

The common thread, however, between these two events, despite 

their difference in their magnitude, is the fact that survivors of 

these fires and the survivors of the floods are both suffering right 

now from severe emotional and mental impacts. These impacts will 

be long lasting for California survivors, and they are long lasting 

for the survivors along the Gulf Coast. 

Many of you who watched the coverage of the wildfires saw reports of distress, nightmares, and emotional disturbances in evacuees as they camped out in shelters awaiting news on the status 

of their homes and their loved ones. Unfortunately for them, I 

know that this is only the beginning. Even 2 years after our terrible 2005 hurricane season, hurricane survivors along the Gulf 

Coast continue to suffer emotionally as they ride out the slow recovery process. 

For Hurricanes Katrina and Rita survivors from all walks of life, 

the stress from the storm and rebuilding has hit a high level that 

can only be described as a crisis. The loss of homes, jobs, and loved 

ones, together with the separation of family and the slow, painful 

pace of recovery has left, I think, emotional scars. 

The mental health situation has emerged as one of the most critical issues facing our recovery, and that is the focus of the hearing 

today. From our police force, our firefighters, and other first responders, who themselves were victims, to our young children, to 

the elderly, from everyday men and women trying to provide for 

their families, the mental health crisis in the Gulf Coast has left 

no segment of society untouched. 

Between May 2005 and February 2006, 668 first responders were 

surveyed by the LSU Health Sciences Center: 19 percent of police 

officers exhibited symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress 

disorders (PTSD); 26 percent exhibited symptoms of major depresVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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sion; 1 in 5 said their alcohol consumption had increased. A survey 

of 2,757 children returning to New Orleans within a year of Hurricane Katrina found that 20 percent had been touched by a hurricane-related death or injury; 33 percent had been temporarily separated from parents or guardians; 1,638 school children grades 4 

through 12 were also surveyed by LSU; 54 percent met criteria for 

PTSD or depression. During the same period of time, 31 percent of 

children preschool to age 5 demonstrated symptoms meeting criteria for mental health referrals. 

We always have a challenge in our community for mental health. 

There never seems to be enough resources or enough services. But 

the situation along the Gulf Coast and the potential long-term impacts of the fires in California warrant some attention and our 

focus today. 

The city of New Orleans currently has just five active emergency 

rooms. As of August 2006, only 77 out of 460 pre-Hurricane 

Katrina beds, inpatient psychiatric beds, are available in New Orleans. This has forced hospitals to turn away even suicidal patients. Recent surveys have found that only 140 out of 617 primary 

care physicians have returned. An American Psychiatric Association survey found that 22 of 196 psychiatrists—only 22—are still 

practicing in New Orleans. 

Now, when I say New Orleans, I mean the regions: St. Bernard, 

parts of St. Tammany, Jefferson, and Orleans Parishes. We still 

have major destruction in Cameron on the western side of our 

State, and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the communities of 

Waveland and Biloxi and other places—Pass Christian, MIssissippi—are still very significantly impacted. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Landrieu follows:] 

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1The prepared statement of Ms. Power with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 

41. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So I thank Senator Stevens for joining me. 

He has been a real champion in this effort. I would like now to ask 

for his opening statement, and then when he finishs, I will be introducing our first witness. 

We do have three panels, but we intend to move this hearing 

quickly, and we do anticipate other Members showing up, and 

when they do, they will be recognized and their statements submitted for the record. Senator Stevens. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS 

Senator STEVENS. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

I do not have an opening statement. I look forward to hearing the 

statements of the witnesses. We have a conference on defense at 

3:30 p.m., so I will have to leave at that time. That is why I would 

just as soon move long. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Senator Stevens. 

Our first witness will be Kathryn Power, Director of the Center 

for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health 

Services Administration (SAMHSA). Prior to her appointment, she 

served for over 10 years as the Director of the Rhode Island Department for Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals. She has 

also served in the capacity as community health director there. 

Ms. Power, you have a tremendous amount of responsibility and 

authority over this Federal program, and we thank you for being 

here today and look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF A. KATHRYN POWER, M.ED.,1 DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES, SUBSTANCE ABUSE 

AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

Ms. POWER. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. I am really appreciative of the honor to 

appear before you today, and I thank you for the opportunity. 

I am going to be brief in my oral response to the questions that 

you had asked me to address, and I would ask that you make the 

full test of my remarks a part of the hearing record. 

As a mental health professional, I have a special lifelong interest 

in trauma responsive care. As I started my career as a rape crisis 

counselor, I learned about the powerful effects of trauma—how 

trauma could psychologically devastate a person, how the damage 

from trauma could spill into a person’s entire social network, including partners, family, friends, and children. But it does not take 

an expert in trauma or mental health care to know that times of 

crisis leave indelible marks etched on our psyches, we need only to 

look inward. I also learned that healing and recovery are possible 

and do take time. 

Some 50 years ago, I still remember Hurricane Hazel, a deadly 

and tremendous storm of enormous power that made an enduring 

impression on my young mind. 

11 

I remember the nuclear accident on Three Mile Island on the 

Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. I lived a mere 8 miles away 

from that accident with my two sons and husband. 

And I remember the night of the Station Night Club fire in West 

Warwick, Rhode Island, in which 100 people lost their lives, and 

at that time I was the State Mental Health and Substance Abuse 

Authority. Today, 4 years later, the community and the State are 

still recovering. 

I am forever changed by these events. I am sure that each of you 

has had significant similar transforming experiences. Some events 

propel us forward; others test our mettle. Hurricane Katrina did 

both. While challenges remain, I am convinced that already Hurricane Katrina has taught community, State, and national citizens 

and leaders ways in which to effect fundamental change in how we 

understand and approach disaster preparedness and response, particularly in behavioral health, and above all, for the most vulnerable victims of these events. 

Effective disaster preparedness and response are an essential 

part of SAMHSA’s public health mission in building resilience and 

facilitating recovery. That is why, in September 2005, SAMHSA focused all of its resources to assist the affected communities along 

the Gulf Coast deliver an effective behavioral health response. That 

is why today we are still responding to the behavioral health needs 

and outcomes for those still struggling to heal and to recover. 

Based on our research early on, we estimated that over 500,000 

women, men, and children might be in need of crisis assistance. 

Our understanding of the risk and protective factors mandated that 

our work at that time proceeded along two courses that were parallel that emphasized the principles of collaborating with the local 

and State authorities. The first path was to lower the psychological 

distress and build resilience for those otherwise healthy individuals 

for whom the disaster might have increased their risk of behavioral 

health problems; and, second, ensuring continuity of care for those 

individuals who had mental and substance abuse disorders already. 

SAMHSA alone has provided more than $170 million in mental 

health and substance abuse funding, including $64 million in 2007. 

Those funds are also in addition to the Crisis Counseling Program, 

which is funded by FEMA and administered by SAMHSA, as well 

as the SAMHSA staff costs that were associated with the mobilization of over 900 Federal and civilian staff that provided mental 

health disaster services in the region. They include discretionary 

and block grant mental health and substance abuse treatment and 

prevention funds. 

While much physical and emotional rebuilding remains to be accomplished, the work that SAMHSA undertook in collaboration 

with Federal, State, and local officials in the affected Gulf Coast regions stand as a testimony of what can be done and what can be 

done well to help rebuild the emotional health and well-being of a 

proud population. The process and outcomes of our work to reach 

out to people through the Crisis Counseling Program, whether to 

assure them that their feelings were normal and healthy or to urge 

them toward further evaluation and treatment, were the subject of 

and intensive cross-site evaluation in July 2007. And, Madam 

Chairman, that is one of the studies and objective evaluations that 

12 

you had asked me to bring, and I brought a copy of that with me 

today. 

While we could say that our work is complete and life in the Gulf 

Coast today approximates what it was in the days before Hurricane 

Katrina and her sister hurricanes, we cannot say that. However, it 

is not for want of effort on the part of SAMHSA and on the part 

of HHS and on the part of the Administration. The work of building resilience and facilitating recovery begins with individuals in 

families, in neighborhoods, and in communities themselves. What 

SAMHSA can do best is to provide state-of-the-art tools, state-ofthe-art resources to our colleagues on the ground, and I believe 

that is precisely what we have done over the many months since 

Hurricane Katrina. 

Today, I believe that the resources and the knowledge are, in 

fact, placed squarely in the hands of the States, to use as they determine to the best interest of the behavioral health of the women, 

men, and children throughout the Gulf Region, and all of those who 

have been affected. In just these past 3 weeks, SAMHSA has offered to continue to work with leaders of the Gulf State Region to 

bring greater transparency to the process through which resources 

can be best allocated to meet the behavioral health needs of Hurricane Katrina survivors. 

I would be very pleased to answer any questions you may have, 

and thank you again for the opportunity to speak before you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. 

Let me begin by commenting that clearly your background more 

than adequately prepares you for the job that you are doing now, 

and I appreciate the sincerity with which you are approaching it. 

One of my questions has to do, though, with the law that seems 

to restrict some funding or most of the funding of FEMA going to 

crisis counseling as opposed to treatment. 

Could you comment about whether you agree with the status of 

the law? If not, have you recommended a change? And how does 

that narrow interpretation affect you from actually delivering treatment? Because I understand that the crisis counseling is actually 

limited to five visits only and no real treatment in terms of mental 

health needs. 

Ms. POWER. Thank you for the question, Senator. I think it is a 

very important one, and I think that we need to focus on the Crisis 

Counseling Program (CCP), which really was originally entitled the 

Crisis Counseling, Training, and Assistance Program when it was 

started 30 years ago. And I think that even if we just talk about 

the semantics of that, the origination of the program was basically 

designed to really be short-term interventions. It was not intended 

from its origin to be long-term mental health treatment. 

One of the things that we have found over the past several years, 

particularly in working with the Gulf States, is that the component 

parts of the Crisis Counseling, Training, and Assistance Program 

are sometimes hard to understand, and we need to explain a little 

bit more clearly what the particular programs are under the CCP. 

So under one program of the CCP, which is the Immediate Services Program, that is the program that is available for a 60-day period that is really designed to hopefully support public education 

efforts after disasters about behavioral health reactions, and really 

13 

the phenomena—and, actually, the upside of what has occurred 

post-Hurricane Katrina is that for the first time—and I think your 

Subcommittee is evidence of this. For the first time, people are 

really paying attention to mental health and substance abuse 

issues in a disaster. And I really do think that that is such an important step in the right direction from a public health perspective. 

The other part of the Counseling Program is the longer-term program, which is 9 months, and that program is really designed, 

again, for public education campaigns, for short-term interventions, 

for hotline services, and for individual crisis counseling in the outreach to homes. 

What we did do in this particular iteration is that we did create, 

working with FEMA and working with both Louisiana and Mississippi, another classification of service called Specialized Crisis 

Counseling Services. And that was, frankly, Senator, the first time 

that they were able to take the Crisis Counseling Program and say, 

wait a minute, we think that there might be another level of need 

that needs to be reviewed; and if the State can justify the need in 

catastrophic disasters, there was a specialized crisis counseling 

service that was provided. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Do you know how much money was allocated? Because I see here that the total amount awarded to the immediate crisis counseling—I think this is just Louisiana numbers— 

was $20 million. 

Ms. POWER. In the Immediate Services Program? 

Senator LANDRIEU. In the Immediate Services Program for de- clared parishes. Then it looks like there is about $1.2 million for 

undeclared parishes. 

Ms. POWER. OK. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Do you know how much of that money was 

carved out for actual treatment the way you have just described? 

Ms. POWER. Well, I think your question actually talked about the 

fact that there are longer-term treatment needs that are not necessarily being met by the Crisis Counseling Program. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Correct. 

Ms. POWER. And I think that is true because the Crisis Counseling Program was really expected to meet short-term interventions. The individuals from the State I am sure can verify this. The 

longer-term treatment was really, I think, identified as being supported through the social services block grant dollars that Louisiana received. So that was what I understand were the plans to 

use those funds for. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Correct, and we received, according to this, 

$64 million. But my point is since you have testified that it came 

to your attention, or the administrator’s, that perhaps the crisis 

case program that was crafted 30 years ago was missing maybe an 

important third level of treatment, say again what you all did. 

Ms. POWER. What we did was we had conversations with FEMA 

and with both the State, both Louisiana and Mississippi, and developed what we called an expanded service through Specialized Crisis Counseling Services, and that was basically intended to try to 

address some of the needs that you had articulated around substance abuse screening and referral, suicide risk assessment and 

intervention, teaching stress management techniques and coping 

14 

techniques and the prioritization and triaging of particular anxiety 

symptoms, assisting with the coordination of care, and doing focused interventions with a licensed mental health professional and 

resource coordinator. 

So that was the expanded Specialized Service Counseling, and 

both Louisiana and Mississippi took advantage of that. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Great. And, again, I am trying to get to what 

percentage of the allocation was directed to that new approach, 

generally. 

Ms. POWER. We will have to get that for you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. If you could get that for me, because I appreciate the movement to be flexible and try to respond to the situation, and I think for the record it would be important to know what 

resources followed that action, because it brings me to—and then 

I will turn it over to my colleague for any questions. And this is 

a small program, but it is somewhat indicative. And, again, this is 

not to be overly critical of you personally or your department, but 

recently, as you know, I had to, with the help of my colleagues, reinstate funding for a $400,000 grant that was one of the few operational grants in the entire Gulf Coast, very small amount of 

money but significant to us, $400,000, that was actually eliminated 

this year in the SAMHSA budget. And I had to, with the help of 

the other Members of the Senate, reinstate that last week in an appropriations process. 

So it leads me to believe that while your testimony seems to be 

that you are all leaning forward, evidently there is some part of the 

agency that is cutting back funding when another part of the agency is trying to support additional funding. Now, we fixed that, and 

I thank the Senators for stepping up. But I cannot keep fixing 

every $400,000, $300,000, and $200,000 grant. We have got to see 

some real action, I think, within the Department to make changes 

that are necessary and recommend things to us for improvement. 

Senator Stevens. 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you. 

Ms. Power, if you think about the national scene with the hurricanes in the Southeast, violent storms in the West, the fires in 

California, and floods up in New England, isn’t it true that there 

is this problem of adjustment throughout the country today, notwithstanding on top of that we have two wars going on? How do 

you allocate your resources under those circumstances? 

Ms. POWER. Well, Senator, we have certainly through our discretionary grant portfolio and through those programs particularly focused on systems of care for children, particularly focused on the 

child trauma network, as the Senator had mentioned, and we have 

a fairly wide portfolio of discretionary programs that we know we 

will hear from and receive applications from those areas that have 

been affected by these disasters. 

We have seen the effects of the expansion of the Garrett Lee 

Smith suicide program take effect and take root within college campuses. We have seen expansion of the National Suicide Hotline, 

which we actually have created another hotline for purposes of response. So we try to use our discretionary program, even though 

it is not huge, we try to make sure that discretionary program can 

appropriately respond to the mental health and substance abuse 

15 

needs of populations. It is very huge, and particularly because you 

as leaders in the Senate and in the House are saying mental health 

is really important, the emotional lives of people is very important, 

and it is finally being given the same level of attention as physical 

health care. We applaud that and think that is wonderful. And as 

people become more attuned to and understand what psychological 

first aid is, what resiliency factors work well for people, we hope 

that education and training and awareness are going to go a long 

way for people to be able to understand what they can do for their 

own mental health in terms of traumatic reactions, what they can 

do to support their families and themselves in ways we have 

learned from September 11, 2001. We are learning from Hurricanes 

Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. We are learning from each disaster what 

are some of those risk and protective factors that we need to educate people more about so that, in fact, people can be armed with 

much stronger personal tools and techniques to be able to handle 

what is really quite unrelenting pressure. With one crisis after another, the environment in which we live, with the status of life 

today, it has been very difficult to try to react. 

So we try to use our discretionary portfolio, and we are also trying to get information out about how do you assess your own mental health, what is good psychological first aid, what are good tools 

and techniques that you need to have as an individual. Nobody 

ever taught us that when we were growing up, and we are finally 

learning that is an important part of our educational system and 

an important part of our family-strengthening system. 

Senator STEVENS. Well, my comment would be that I am from 

the generation where we did not have that luxury, but beyond that, 

it does seem to me that we are not doing enough in our educational 

process. You just said we used to learn it at home, and if we are 

not going to learn it at home, we have got to learn it in school. 

What are we doing about putting us into the educational system 

and dealing with prevention rather than reaction? 

Ms. POWER. One of the things that I did, Senator, in my life is 

that I taught elementary school. I taught fifth and sixth grade, and 

then I taught high school math for several years. And as a parent 

and as a teacher, I have always believed that we have not necessarily used our schools and the opportunities in our schools to 

build mental toughness and mental competency. And so we have 

adopted an emotional competency agenda using work that is well 

researched in terms of bringing emotional competency skills into 

the classroom and helping students build their sense of mastery in 

terms of their own emotions. And we have some selected programs 

that we use with our Safe Schools Healthy Students grantees that 

we work with, with the Department of Education. We have antibullying programs. We have a number of focused school mental 

health programs that really do reflect and, I think, show an appropriate way to encourage our teachers, our family members, and our 

students to become much more knowledgeable about their own 

competency and their own emotional level of mastery for the way 

they are, the way they think, the way they behave, and the way 

they function. And I think that there is very powerful work going 

on in our schools that are selected sites to teach us more about how 

do we get better at that and how can we push that out further and 

16 

make not just centers of excellence but have it across the United 

States in all of our school systems. 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. 

I would like to follow that up now because my question would be 

specific. As you know, we lost—probably close to 50 schools were 

destroyed just in Orleans Parish, another 7 in St. Bernard, and any 

number of schools throughout the Gulf Coast, elementary and high 

schools were destroyed, and that whole system is being rebuilt and 

revamped. 

Does SAMHSA right now have any current initiatives with the 

school boards or parishes or counties along the Gulf Coast, any 

extra support that you all are doing directly, not through social 

service block grants, to help with mental health counseling in the 

schools? And if so, where? And if not, why not? Is it a lack of resources? 

Ms. POWER. I am not familiar, Senator, with anything specific. 

I will go back and offer you my review of, if we have any specific 

grantees that may be receiving some of our prevention and school 

mental health promotion grants, and I will take a look at that and 

make sure that you have that information. I did not look at that 

portfolio before I came today. I apologize. 

Senator LANDRIEU. If you could get that information to us. 

Ms. POWER. Absolutely. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Because this is a real need in our schools. 

The schools have become a potential stabilizing force in the community. 

Ms. POWER. Absolutely. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Stabilizing to the children that have no home, 

no church, no playground, no neighborhood, and stabilizing to the 

parents who can put their children in school during the day and 

manage to either gut their home, rebuild their home, or go back to 

work, or all of the above. And schools are becoming in this recovery 

the sort of necessary and essential anchor. 

Now, hospitals are anchors, too, and churches are anchors, and 

synagogues, but schools, I am observing as a leader in this community, are becoming sort of the central anchor. And it seems to me 

that would be a good place of delivery to help and counsel children 

who can be identified by their teachers and administrators, and 

also a place where parents can be receiving information about the 

state of their own mental health and strategies or coping mechanisms as you have suggested. So I would like you to look into that. 

Just two more questions, and then we will move to the second 

panel. According to my records, in 1995 and again in 2002, the 

FEMA Inspector General recommended that FEMA and SAMHSA 

should collaborate to evaluate the overall effectiveness of this Crisis Counseling Program that you have described and we have 

talked about. Do you know if there has been an official ongoing collaborative, either then or now, between FEMA and SAMHSA to see 

if this program could be restructured to meet some of the needs 

that we have identified in your testimony? 

Ms. POWER. I came to SAMHSA in 2003, Senator, and since I 

have been there, we clearly have an ongoing cooperative coordination arrangement with FEMA on a regular basis to talk about the 

17 

Crisis Counseling Program. We did have—and this is the other 

piece that I brought—a final evaluation, outside external evaluation on the Crisis Counseling Program done in July 2007. So that 

I am delivering to you today so that you can see that this is a formal evaluation of the Crisis Counseling Program. 

In that evaluation, they have made very specific recommendations for FEMA and SAMHSA to sit down and have a conversation 

about what is the next evolution on this program, and, in fact, we 

are starting those discussions and have had those discussions and 

are going to continue those discussions. And as a matter of fact, in 

preparation for today’s hearing, I talked to the mental health commissioners and substance abuse directors of the Gulf Coast States 

and said give me your ideas about where we need to go, because 

we have this set of recommendations, and we will be sitting down 

with FEMA and having those conversations. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Thank you for your time and your attention, and we will accept that report, and it is something that our 

Subcommittee is going to spend some time focusing on because we 

think the need is real, it is severe, and it needs to be addressed. 

Ms. POWER. Thank you, Senator. I really wanted to just add one 

other item which I did not get a chance to speak about some of the 

other things that we have been working on. But I will tell you that 

just recently we learned that the State of Louisiana had spoken 

with the Department of Health and Human Services about the 

need that they had relative to the shortages of mental health professionals in the area, particularly in the areas that you described, 

and that the shortages in those mental health professionals were 

really a very significant barriers to utilizing the existing resources 

that were available for delivering care. And I wanted to just report—which I think is good news—that the Department has offered 

to assign Commission Corps officers who have mental health expertise to fill vacancies in the State and local clinics until full-time 

staff can be recruited in the areas. And we are really excited about 

the opportunity to be able to have the Department in discussions 

with the State Health Department on the feasibility of that, and 

I think that is really a wonderful step in the right direction. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, I appreciate that, and I hope that your 

remarks will be noted in this Subcommittee, but also when monies 

are not expended, which sometimes happens in many of our accounts, despite the ongoing efforts for recovery, sometimes in most 

instances it is because of the shortage of personnel or the complete 

destruction of the facilities that would normally absorb the funding. And the Gulf Coast should not be penalized for that, but the 

programs should be made more flexible so that those resources can 

be used more slowly over time as our personnel come back. 

Thank you so much. 

Ms. POWER. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Senator LANDRIEU. If our second panel would come forward, I 

will do your introductions as you take your seats. Our first witness 

will be Dr. Anthony Speier. He is the Director of Disaster Mental 

Health Operations for the Louisiana Office of Mental Health. Prior 

to Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Speier served as Director of the Division 

of Program Development and Implementation for the Louisiana OfVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
18 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Speier appears in the Appendix on page 58. 

fice of Mental Health. He served as Chair of Adult Services and 

brings many years of experience to his job. 

Jan Kasofsky, our second witness, is Executive Director of Capital Area Human Services, and let me thank her for her great 

work. Many of the citizens of Orleans and St. Bernard fled to the 

Capital Area, and her agency has done just a heroic job to literally 

provide service and care for hundreds of thousand of citizens as 

they fled to higher ground. She has any number of experiences that 

give her the ability to do the job that she is doing now. 

Dr. Kevin Stephens, good to see you again. He is currently the 

Director of the City of New Orleans Health Department. He serves 

on the clinical faculty of Xavier University, Dillard University, the 

LSU Medical School, and Tulane Medical School. It should be noted 

that Dr. Stephens stayed at Charity Hospital through the disaster, 

was there during and immediately afterwards, and has been helping to lead the redevelopment of our health care system in the region. 

So I hope that you all will limit, of course, your remarks to—I 

think we have 5 minutes each, and then we will open it up for 

questions, and we will start with you, Dr. Speier. 

TESTIMONY OF ANTHONY H. SPEIER, PH.D.,1 DIRECTOR, DISASTER MENTAL HEALTH OPERATIONS, OFFICE OF MENTAL 

HEALTH, LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HOSPITALS 

Mr. SPEIER. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Senator Stevens, and 

Members of the Subcommittee. I would like to spend a few moments giving a little history about the mental health system in 

Louisiana prior to Hurricane Katrina. 

Governor Kathleen Blanco and Senator John Breaux initiated a 

health reform movement in Louisiana in 2004, of which mental 

health reform was a major component. The storm came, challenged 

us in many ways, but that process has moved forward. And we now 

operate under a strategic plan for access to mental health care, 

which is the State’s plan to organize services, and it goes beyond 

just what the Office of Mental Health provides. It refers to services 

that occur throughout both the public and private sector. 

The basic principles of that plan is the use of evidence-based 

practices, providing effective services for people of all ages, provide 

accessible crisis services, provide combined access to primary and 

mental health care, and provide individualized supports for persons 

with serious and persistent mental illness and people with serious 

emotional disturbance. 

There is a very real crisis in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, as 

you both have mentioned. The mental health needs, as we have 

seen them in people with serious and persistent mental illness, are 

tremendous and have gotten only worse from the storm. When you 

look at the general population, there have been recent studies by 

both the Kaiser Family Foundation, by the Louisiana Public Health 

Institute, and by Dr. Kessler’s group. They have indicated over and 

over how people can access health care, people can access mental 

health care; the hospitals that they were used to going to no longer 

19 

exist. There is even better evidence that people who have a more 

compromised situation, people who have less resources available to 

them, have a harder time accessing health care. This is true for 

older adults, middle-aged people, and, most profoundly, our children. 

Since September 2005, I have directed the Crisis Counseling Program, what we call ‘‘Louisiana Spirit,’’ and what we have seen in 

that program is that we have people who never before would have 

used mental health services are now desperately in need of them. 

Just to give you all a few numbers that represent the scope of work 

we have done, since September 2005, we have made over 2.6 million contacts with people throughout the State. Of those, we have 

made contacts with people in southwest Louisiana and southeast 

Louisiana. We have provided over 400,000 more in-depth counseling sessions to a little over 239,000 individuals, of which 100,000 

of those individuals are in the greater New Orleans area. And what 

we are finding is those numbers are not decreasing at this point 

in time. Recent numbers from our crisis lines show a doubling of 

numbers since August and September over June and July, and we 

think the anniversary issues and the prolonged rate of recovery 

have had a major impact on people and still has that impact. 

You mentioned the Specialized Crisis Counseling Program, which 

is one of the very positive things that we have been able to accomplish with FEMA and SAMHSA, and in our program, specialized 

crisis counselors are providing services to people who are experiencing suicidal ideation, who are experiencing senses of hopelessness and helplessness. 

We find from our people that they are experiencing fear. They 

are fearful for their children. They are fearful and anxious about 

the next storm and living in a trailer. People are sad, and when 

they get home, they find that they all of a sudden experience loss 

and grief. So they get their home built, and then that rush is gone, 

and all of a sudden the losses are tremendous that they experience, 

and they need to be able to deal and treat the grief they are experiencing. 

In Louisiana today, instead of things resolving themselves, we 

still have over 40,000 people in trailers, which we estimate between 

200,000 and 250,000 people are still in a displaced status, both in 

Louisiana and in our neighboring States. People who are still 

struggling with the early stages of disaster recovery, which usually 

take place in the first 9 months after a disaster—or 6 months after 

a disaster, and we have experienced that with a number of storms. 

This storm is not stopping. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Could you try to wrap up in the next 30 seconds? 

Mr. SPEIER. I will. The points I would like to make about what 

we need to do: We need to meet the survivor needs. We need a 

process of providing quick referral and treatment for trauma, anxiety, and depression. We need to assist people with profound feelings of loss and grief; ensure rapid response to psychiatric emergencies; provide commitment to group interventions to help survivors re-establish security in their lives. 

And what we need to do for future disasters is to provide a national strategy where we do psychological first aid; we build a moVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
20 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Kasofsky appears in the Appendix on page 71. 

bile volunteer professional corps of mental health professionals; we 

institute mitigation programs where we can plan for disasters. 

Right now we are not able to plan for a disaster through the FEMA 

process if it is a mental health issue. We need opportunities to 

have continuity of operations plans, and we need to be able to have 

5-year cycles of funding that are flexible and allow us to move the 

dollars as we so need so that we meet the needs of the people rather than the needs of the Federal regulations. Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you very much. Dr. Kasofsky. 

TESTIMONY OF JAN M. KASOFSKY, PH.D.,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CAPITAL AREA HUMAN SERVICES DISTRICT, BATON 

ROUGE, LOUISIANA 

Ms. KASOFSKY. Madam Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify about the mental and physical health needs and disaster response in the greater 

Baton Rouge area. I am Dr. Jan Kasofsky, Executive Director of 

Capital Area Human Services District, the publicly funded mental 

health authority in the Baton Rouge area. The impact of Hurricane 

Katrina far exceeds the geographic destruction in New Orleans. As 

you have already mentioned, over 350,000 New Orleanians initially 

evacuated to the Baton Rouge area, and the efforts by the provider 

community led the groundwork for a best practice approach for normalizing access to ongoing care. 

Between 30,000 and 40,000 evacuees remain, some having chosen to stay, while others are using it as a staging point to return 

to their city. There is no question that the rate of disabilities and 

homelessness in this population, particularly mental illness, is 

much higher than in the typical population and is reflected in the 

volume and acuity data in this region. 

The public adult mental health clinics currently have a 65-percent increase in new clients, more patients in crisis, and a 10- to 

12-week wait to see a psychiatrist. The wait time for children is 

now 6 to 10 weeks. Although the mental health clinics have added 

social workers and streamlined intake processes, we cannot meet 

the capacity expansion demands to see and retain patients without 

adding psychiatrists. Although we have the funding, we have not 

been able to recruit needed psychiatrists. It is essential that the recruitment incentives for physicians in the greater New Orleans 

area be available to the greater Baton Rouge area to support capacity expansion. 

The local private and public emergency departments have a sustained 30-percent increase in behavioral health crisis, totaling over 

720 individuals per month, with all of these individuals needing 

hospitalization. The large number of people using the emergency 

departments is a clear indication of increased trauma, the loss of 

public and private beds from the greater New Orleans area, and a 

massively overwhelmed local public outpatient clinic system. Clearly, increasing clinic capacity will greatly assist the emergency departments. 

A specialized psychiatric emergency department is being established locally as one of nine components of a crisis system. Services 

21 

there will include administering medication, counseling, referrals, 

and linkage to ongoing appropriate and alternative services. This 

modular unit is being developed while we await receipt of the funds 

into our budget. 

Homelessness is now stable at a 15-percent increase, with 80 

percent noting their disability as mental illness and addictive disorders and 37 percent noting that they came to the area due to 

Hurricane Katrina. With 876 FEMA trailers still occupied, though 

scheduled for de-commissioning soon, and additional families still 

receiving rental subsidies for market housing, it is anticipated that, 

given their income levels, many will enter the homeless population 

once subsidies end. There must be acknowledgment of the levels of 

ongoing need by the evacuees for accessible, affordable housing, especially for those with disabilities. 

Capital Area is newly contracting for housing and treatment for 

individuals with addictive disorders and mental illness to serve 120 

individuals annually. Within the region, an additional 50 to 75 

transitional housing beds are under construction, and permanent 

supportive housing has increased by 31 beds. There are an additional 162 units currently under construction or in the development 

phase. 

While primary care needs are being met, access to public specialty clinics is extremely limited. There is an average 17-week 

wait for life-sustaining treatments needed from cardiology, 

pulmonology, endocrinology, and other clinics. Access is limited by 

funding for additional medical specialists. 

I will briefly identify five recommended changes to the Federal 

disaster response which hindered or complicated our local response 

and recovery efforts. 

One, psychiatric medicines, methadone, and pain management 

medicines are crucial and must be included in the Federal formulary in a disaster. 

Two, a building from which to deliver care at congregate settings 

is required for providers to deliver confidential care, provide privacy, and be sheltered from the weather. 

Three, FEMA must establish transportation to nearby service delivery facilities from the non-commercial congregate sites to avoid 

dependency on mobile teams. 

Four, the Spirit teams must be able to make direct referrals for 

people experiencing trauma and in need of an immediate intervention to ensure service access. The Stafford Act must allow this during the immediate disaster response. 

Five, in a disaster, the locally delegated authority must be allowed to lead one unified approach as identified by the National Incident Management System. 

In conclusion, I want to thank this Subcommittee for its attention to our needs and its financial assistance on behalf of the greater Baton Rouge area evacuee and provider community. In this continuing crisis, we still have ongoing recovery needs, especially for 

psychiatrists and medical specialists to expand capacity and for accessible and affordable housing. Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you very much, Doctor. Dr. Stephens. 

22 

1The prepared statement of Dr. Stephens with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 

93. 

TESTIMONY OF KEVIN U. STEPHENS, SR., M.D., J.D.,1

DIRECTOR, NEW ORLEANS HEALTH DEPARTMENT 

Dr. STEPHENS. Good afternoon, Chairman Mary Landrieu and 

Ranking Member Ted Stevens, distinguished guests, all of you who 

are present here. I am Dr. Kevin Stephens, Director of the New Orleans Health Department, a city that contributes greatly to our culture and commerce in this country, and it is a city, however, that 

is still facing a crisis in the availability of mental health care after 

the worst natural and manmade catastrophic disaster that occurred in the United States. 

Thank you for providing this opportunity to share with the Subcommittee the urgent mental health care needs of our community, 

and we appreciate your continued concern about our progress in rebuilding the mental health system. 

Hurricane Katrina devastated our infrastructure, flooding seven 

of the nine hospitals and many other medical facilities. And so 

what I want to do, I want to focus on three things, three critical 

problems: One, the lack of an adequate number of available psychiatric hospital beds for citizens in our region; two, the ongoing 

challenge of recruiting and retaining mental health professionals, 

as we heard earlier in this hearing; and, three, the criminalization 

of mental health patients that system gaps are causing. I will outline what existed before Hurricane Katrina, what is currently 

available, and, finally, what we have to do to adequately serve our 

citizens. 

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, we had over 350 public and private 

psychiatric beds available in New Orleans, and that included 152 

beds at the Medical Center of Louisiana, 30 at New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, and others at DePaul and the VA. 

The beds at Charity were critical because they served our large 

population of uninsured and underinsured citizens, and that facility included 92 inpatient beds, as well as 20 dual diagnosis beds 

for those with psychiatric and substance abuse problems, and a 

critically important 40-person capacity Crisis Intervention Unit. 

This specialized unit allowed for individuals in psychiatric crisis to 

be observed for evaluation in a safe place. The Charity CIU served 

as the single point of entry or central triage station. First responders were able to transfer care of mental health patients to a designated area for medical clearance and psychiatric evaluation, 

which was done within one hour. The proximity to the emergency 

department provided the seamless and critical medical clearance 

for patients to be moved to the CIU for evaluation, treatment, and 

release or admission, depending upon their illness. The CIU also 

accepted referrals from other facilities which depended on Charity 

to appropriately triage the patients. 

Currently, there is less than half the number of public and private mental health beds in the city as we had prior to Hurricane 

Katrina. This is a particularly acute problem since public hospital 

beds are unavailable to the uninsured. Of the two Medical Center 

of Louisiana campuses—University and Charity—only University 

Hospital has reopened. It provides emergency department services 

23 

and has 10 beds in a temporary mental health emergency room extension (MHERE) unit. University Hospital also has approximately 

a 20-bed detox unit, and the State has opened approximately 52 

beds at the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital and the DePaul sites, 

with plans to increase the number by the end of this year. 

Thanks to the perseverance of Congress on Hurricane Katrinarelated health issues and the recent hearing, Secretary Leavitt 

gave the area $100 million for primary and mental health. We 

think that these are critical dollars for the area, but it is too early 

for us to determine their impact on mental health because we just 

got these funds several weeks ago. However, these funds will not 

increase the number of inpatient psychiatric beds. 

We are also very grateful to the Medical Center of New Orleans 

because—at Charity, because they have expanded and responded to 

the need. However, because of a steady stream of people returning 

home and new people coming to the area, there is an increasing 

prevalence of mental illness since the storm. 

Recent reports, as you will hear later, have said that the prevalence of serious mental illness has pretty much doubled from preHurricane Katrina. In fact, our EMS department averages one call 

per day of suicide attempt, bizarre behavior, or actual suicide. We 

average 190 police calls per month from our 911 call log for serious 

mental illness and threats of suicide. 

The city has three things I will just briefly say: One, the lack of 

a CIU in the area. However, the MHERE at University Hospital 

does not accept referrals from other hospitals; it does not serve as 

a single point of entry for mental health, but does provide some 

services, but we are in need of more. If you look in the presentation 

here, you can see that the ER time for the EMS is very prolonged. 

Our police department has troops that go and wait in the emergency room to get services because the emergency departments are 

really clogged up with mental health patients. 

A centrally located CIU is also important, and I just want to get 

to the shortage of personnel. We are working with the Acting Surgeon General to temporarily help us shore up our mental health 

professionals. 

Last, we have to create a system that does not criminalize the 

mentally ill who go into jail due to lack of services. 

The Stafford Act does provide some resources for crisis counseling after major disasters. However, the act does not provide for 

psychiatric services or funding for prescriptions. 

The lack of portability of Medicaid from State to State also must 

be addressed to improve access to health and mental health care 

following a disaster. States should be required to give full faith and 

credit to the evacuating State’s Medicaid program for the time of 

the declared emergency. This is critical for mental health patients, 

especially now as we go through the next hurricane season and so 

forth, especially when you evacuate to other States, you have to 

have your insurance, or else you have no insurance, and then you 

are back in the problem again. And these people have mental illnesses. That makes it more difficult for them to navigate. So this 

portability of Medicaid from State to State, especially during a declared emergency, is really something that we think is critical. 

24 

1The chart submitted by Senator Landrieu appears in the Appendix on page 175. 

I would just like to thank you for this opportunity to speak on 

our mental health status and as well as your commitment to New 

Orleans. And though we face a historic crisis, we are hopeful that 

with your assistance we can solve the remaining problems and 

build a better and stronger community for everyone. Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you very much. 

I have asked my staff to walk over to the charts here because 

I think it is an important place to start the questions for this 

panel. 

This is a chart of mental health resources in New Orleans before 

Hurricane Katrina and after Hurricane Katrina,1 and I want to say 

again that if time would have allowed, we could have had the same 

testimony for every parish and county that is affected. Please do 

not take that this hearing is just about New Orleans. It is an attempt to show the needs in the region as well as what I have started to refer to as the ‘‘host communities,’’ led primarily by Baton 

Rouge, but Hammond has been another host community; Lafayette, 

Louisiana, has been a host community; Alexandria, Louisiana; 

Shreveport; where people are still displaced in other places, and I 

am sure this is the same for Mississippi. The people of the Gulf 

Coast just did not disappear. They have gone somewhere else, either to north Mississippi or central Mississippi or to Alabama, until 

they can get back to their homes. 

So this is a crisis that is going on throughout the whole Gulf 

Coast, but these are just some numbers. If you can see the psychiatric beds in New Orleans, there were 350. Now there are 77. 

In the greater New Orleans area, it was 668 and now it is 289. 

Physicians in New Orleans, 617; now 140. Psychiatrists in New Orleans, 196; today it is 22. Doctors participating in Medicaid was 

400; today it is 100. And this Subcommittee intends to give the statistics for all the parishes and counties for the record. None will be 

as dramatic as this, but I would say that they are all going to have 

a significant reduction of beds, facilities, and professionals needed 

to solve this problem. And we intend to not just continue to talk 

about this, but to come up with solutions. And the Federal Government has an obligation, in my view, to be part of the solution, but 

we are not the only entity responsible, and that leads me to the 

questions to you, Dr. Speier, for the State of Louisiana. 

I understand the legislature—and I am not sure if it was last 

year or the year before—recently cut funding to your office by 23 

percent. Is that true? If not, was there any decrease at all in funding? Was there an increase? And can you explain your budget situation right now from the State level to your office? 

Mr. SPEIER. I am not aware of the 23-percent decrease. I am primarily with the Crisis Counseling Program, so I have been involved 

in that, Senator, and cannot really speak to that shortfall. I can 

speak to that we have received an increase this year in our budget 

funding, annualizing many of the funds that were provided through 

the social services block grant, programs the legislature did not 

have any idea that money would continue. They had reviewed our 

mental health activities and made strategic investments out of that 

many. Rather than that block grant money just coming in and 

25 

going out, it laid the foundation for the State to then come in and 

build sustainable programs. And so this year, we have received I 

know at least $13 million towards those programs. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Because you are saying the Federal Government—if I can interpret what you are saying—allowed the State to 

keep its social service block grant funding and not have to return 

it at the end of the year, which is customary. It allowed them time 

to build a basis of services. I do not want to put words in your 

mouth, but is that what you are testifying to? 

Mr. SPEIER. The social services block grant money was one 

year—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. They were one time, but they are allowed to 

be kept, as I recall—— 

Mr. SPEIER. Correct. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Didn’t we extend the deadline? 

Mr. SPEIER. Yes, and they extended the deadline, but it was late 

in the extension of that deadline. And so we still have those social 

service block grant monies, and the State used its own resources 

to expand mental health services during this fiscal year. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Because it is very important as we try to 

marshal better, more streamlined, more effective, more muscular 

Federal response, that the Federal Government believes that the 

States and the local governments are doing their fair share as well 

in terms of finding solutions. 

What is the State’s most pressing mental health need? I know 

you listed several, but if you had to say what is on the top of your 

list from your perspective, what would it be? 

Mr. SPEIER. The State’s most pressing mental health need is 

human resources and the resources necessary to deal with the hurricane recovery population. The resources that come into the State 

now through Federal funds for—non-disaster Federal funds and 

State funds are targeting people with serious and persistent mental illness, people with serious emotional disturbance. Those are 

the primary populations, and the populations mandated by the 

State. 

The new population which has emerged and continues to manifest itself in more significant ways is the hurricane recovery population. The people who are worn out and are becoming now symptomatic in significant ways, we do not have the treatment dollars to 

address this population nor the workforce. We have experienced a 

23-percent shrinkage in the mental health professional workforce, 

as your graphs indicate. It is what we have experienced all over the 

State, having to close admissions for the first time in clinics in 

north Louisiana because of the loss of workforce. 

So what we need, in my opinion, is incentives that the Federal 

Government could help us establish to retain and recruit a workforce and long-term funding for programs like the Crisis Counseling Program that included—and include a flexible use of the 

funds with treatment dollars so we can address issues of trauma 

and clinical depression. 

Senator LANDRIEU. I will just summarize the first part of it because this is very interesting to me. In a catastrophic disaster, or 

even a large-scale disaster, you are paralleling your efforts to the 

population that had mental illness before, and the current situation 

26 

has exacerbated it, making their treatment options more difficult, 

their places of service sometimes destroyed, whole new systems 

have to be set up. But what you are also saying is there is an 

emerging population of people who were very healthy or relatively 

healthy mentally before that are now showing symptoms of mental 

illness that basically have no structure within the current framework to basically be treated or dealt with. 

Mr. SPEIER. That is absolutely correct. 

Senator LANDRIEU. All right. Doctor, why don’t you go ahead and 

just take that question from your perspective, what would be—and 

your testimony was excellent, and, again, let me thank the Capital 

Area for everything that you all did to help, and continue to do. 

And we, I believe—I have said this many times. The Federal response has been not what it needs to be to our host communities 

across the board, and we are continuing to work on that. 

But what would you say from your perspective is the most immediate and the need of higher priority from your view? 

Ms. KASOFSKY. Well, I think the point you just summarized that 

Dr. Speier said is very crucial. We are seeing more people who are 

traumatized who actually do meet the State’s criteria for mental 

illness, and so I have been completely surprised about the number 

of people that call for our services that actually do meet the serious 

and persistent now. And so we have to increase our capacity for 

those folks because they are so unstable. 

However, as you said, there is another population, there has always been another population, that have very few options of where 

they could go. It was typically other not-for-profits that had set 

themselves up to see folks who are experiencing mental health 

issues but hopefully never needing the services that the government would provide for a serious mental illness. That population 

was not served well prior to Hurricane Katrina because there are 

just not enough providers that were offering it. And now at this 

point we really do need to see that those folks are seen so that they 

can get some services so that they do not ever meet our criteria. 

However, as I mentioned in my testimony, my clinics are having 

a sustained increase of 65 percent of people meeting our criteria, 

people are waiting much longer than they have ever waited before 

between treatments, and we did see a lot of our local population 

actually drop out of treatment during the height of the disaster 

when we had to see the new folks who had escaped harm in New 

Orleans. And so we know that the frequency by which we need to 

see them is not where it should be because we do not have enough 

physicians or psychiatrists, to see them. 

So although I think it is huge that we address the crisis needs 

that Dr. Stephens is talking about and the needs of people that 

meet the criteria in my clinic, we cannot just focus on crisis. If we 

only put our resources in crisis, that is all we will ever be able to 

support. And so we need to look at the other interventions for people who are experiencing mental health needs who are not seriously mentally ill, have their interventions in a timely way. We 

need to meet the needs of people that are chronic and seriously 

mentally ill. They have to be able to have access to doctors, their 

medicine, and the other needs for wrap-around service. And I include homelessness. Housing is so critical. It is just not possible, 

27 

it is not feasible to stabilize people when they are half-living on the 

street or in a car. 

So I would say from my perspective that timely interventions for 

people in need who do not meet our criteria, the interventions for 

people that do meet our criteria so that they can be seen in a timely way, attain and be maintained in stability, and also have housing so that they can get on with their lives. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Let me ask you this, and if it is in your testimony, forgive me, but what are the costs associated with what you 

could identify as sort of the typical case of a middle-class family 

who was not mentally—or person who was not mentally ill before 

but who shows fairly severe signs of stress associated with either 

the loss of home, community, etc., what would be the—and assuming that the health insurance that they still have—which is a big 

assumption, but assuming they have it, does not cover mental illness because most do not—and the Federal Government has yet to 

mandate that, although we are very close to doing so, as you know. 

What would the average cost be for a person to receive either treatment or medicine, to move them from this point to a healthier situation? I know this is a broad question, so all of you could answer 

generally what you think the cost might be to an individual. 

Ms. KASOFSKY. I am going to need to claim incompetence in that 

area because the people that come to see us, they are not typically 

middle-class people because of their disabilities. And so we do see 

really only the people that are seriously and chronically mentally 

ill. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Dr. Stephens, would you know what the cost 

would be to a family that is not covered by a government program? 

Dr. STEPHENS. I do not know, but what we can do after this hearing, we can go back and I can compile that and give you something 

other than just off the top of my head, something that is based on 

some real numbers, and get it back to you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. That would be very helpful. Dr. Speier. 

Mr. SPEIER. And we have the same situation where we have the 

Medicaid dollars; we know what people spend in that arena. We do 

not have a private sector number. One of the limitations is the 

kinds of services that are available and accessible to people, especially people who are not in the Medicaid system. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, it brings me to a point that has been 

a pattern or a common thread through all of these hearings as I 

have observed and tried to help with this recovery, is the point that 

in a normal situation you have a population that is either disabled, 

elderly, very poor, sick, homeless, that are covered by government 

programs, and it is, of course, their income limits that are sometimes very low. In other words, you can get your services if your 

income is below $10,000 a year or $15,000 a year. But if you think 

about the hundreds of thousands of people that were affected who 

were generally healthy, single earners, or double-earner families, 

who now find themselves homeless, without a neighborhood, were 

healthy before and working before but are unable because of the 

catastrophe. If we do not increase the income limits, this whole 

group is basically without an ability to finance their own mental 

health and physical health recovery. And it is something that I 

think the Federal Government is having a very difficult time unVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
28 

derstanding about this population of recovery population. It is not 

only your typical poor people who have limited resources that are 

struggling desperately under the circumstances, but it is a whole 

new population of middle-income families who are otherwise generally healthy, financially, emotionally, etc., that without a change 

in the Federal programs are basically left without virtually any assistance or aid. And that is what is happening along the Gulf 

Coast. 

We are having a hard time explaining to the Federal Government that while we understand we want to and will continue to 

commit our first to the poorest first, and the sickest—and we will 

always have to do that just because of the moral obligation—that 

there is still this huge population when you look at the mental 

health—in particular the mental health needs, but it is not only 

limited to mental health. 

Dr. Stephens. 

Dr. STEPHENS. Thank you, Senator. I will look at that, and perhaps even another graph that you could look at is the mortality 

rate. It was reported by the AMA in the journal Disaster Medicine 

that for the first 6 months in 2006, we had a 47-percent increase 

in the mortality rate in New Orleans. And, in fact, if you look at 

the mortality rate of New Orleans and compare it to the rest of the 

country, before Hurricane Katrina we were elevated. So this is 47 

percent on top of that. And part of it is the mental illness and so 

forth that we see, and that is something that I think we definitely 

need to look at and address also. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And, Dr. Stephens, this will be the last question of this panel and we will move to the third, but could you comment briefly? We have had hearings and it has been the focus of 

attention about the criminal justice situation, the rising murder 

rate, the challenges to the criminal justice system. Just today the 

district attorney of New Orleans stepped aside and a new district 

attorney has taken over to try to stabilize the situation. But is 

there a nexus potentially between lack of mental health services 

and a rising crime rate? Do you have any studies that would suggest that or any data, either today you can give that testimony or 

submit it later, or any comments about from your perspective if 

there is any relationship there? 

Dr. STEPHENS. Well, thank you again very much. No doubt, like 

in the past 6 months, we average 500 hours in transporting patients to institutions. The police in July logged 534 hours at the 

emergency room for our EMS. Our EMS director said we waste basically a million hours in personnel costs and unbilled revenue over 

the last 6 months because of waiting. 

And so when you go to the prison system, they have the largest 

psychiatric hospital, if you will, in our city, which I think is a 

shame that the largest psychiatric care that you can get is a 60- 

bed unit at the prison. We have 15 female and 45 male. And I 

talked to Dr. Gore, the prison medical director, and he said he was 

having the same challenges. He has one full-time psychiatrist and 

one part-time psychiatrist and 60 patients, and these are critically 

ill. And then what happens is their patients either are sent back 

into the community or they are discharged from home or they are 

discharged from prison without places to go, and so they end up eiVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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1The prepared statement of Mr. Kessler appears in the Appendix on page 100. 

ther getting hurt or hurting someone else and contributing to the 

crime problem and recidivism and so forth. It is just problematic. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Thank you very much. It has been an excellent panel. I appreciate it. 

They have just called a vote at 3:45, so I am going to recess for 

10 minutes, and we will resume the third panel probably right at 

4 o’clock. Thank you so much. 

The Subcommittee will stand in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Senator LANDRIEU. Our hearing will resume. Let me begin by introducing our third panel, if you all will have a seat. 

Our first witness on our last panel is Dr. Ronald Kessler, a Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and Director of the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey Initiative. He directs the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group. Thank you, Dr. Kessler, for joining us and for all the 

things that Harvard University across the board has done to help 

us. We are really grateful for your support, and the many of universities in the country that have stepped forward to help. 

Dr. Howard Osofsky is Chairman and professor and head of the 

Department of Psychiatry at LSU. He has been in the forefront of 

this recovery effort and a long-time champion of people with mental illness and mental challenges, adults as well as children. He is 

a Psychiatric Association member, American Psychiatric Association member and American College of Psychiatric Fellow. We thank 

you very much for your help and support. 

And then Mark Townsend is a professor of psychiatry and Vice 

Chairman for General Psychiatry at LSU Health Sciences Center 

in New Orleans. He has extensive experience in community psychiatry, having served as medical director of the LSU Partial Hospitalization Program and is an assertive and active member in 

community team treatment. 

So I thank you very much, all of you, and we will start with you, 

Dr. Kessler. 

TESTIMONY OF RONALD C. KESSLER, PH.D.,1 PROFESSOR OF 

HEALTHCARE POLICY, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, AND 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR OF THE HURRICANE KATRINA 

COMMUNITY ADVISORY GROUP 

Mr. KESSLER. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Members of the 

Subcommittee. As you mentioned, I am the Principal Investigator 

of the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group, and this is 

a group of about 1,000 people that we assembled shortly after the 

hurricane. It is representative of all those who were pre-hurricane 

residents of the areas affected by the hurricane who we asked to 

allow us to follow over time in a series of surveys to track the mental health and well-being of people in the population. This is a series of studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, 

FEMA, and by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation 

at HHS. 

In our baseline survey, we found that about 14 percent of people 

who were residents of the hurricane-affected area met criteria for 

30 

SAMHSA’s definition of a serious mental illness; another 21 percent met criteria for some other mental disorder according to the 

standard DSM categories, and this is roughly twice as high as what 

we find in typical general population surveys. 

We also found, though, that unlike typical general population 

surveys where we find that women have higher rates than men, 

poor people higher rates than rich people and old people higher 

rates than young people, the changes in the prevalence associated 

with the hurricane were largely unrelated to socio-demographics. 

This was, for better or worse, an equal opportunity disaster that 

affected broad segments of the population, irrespective of their 

prior vulnerabilities. 

We also found something very encouraging and intriguing, and 

that is despite the high rates of anxiety and depression and PTSD 

in the population, very small proportions of the people in this population reported having suicidal ideation, plans, or suicide attempts 

in the first months after the disaster. As a matter of fact, we found 

that these things were vanishingly small in the first few months, 

and what seemed to be happening was that in questioning more 

depth about this, despite the fact that many people were understandably anxious and worried about the future, they were sad and 

depressed about their losses, there was a sense of strength and optimism in the population that was quite remarkable. Many people, 

as a matter of fact, the majority of the population said they felt 

that they were stronger because they had lived through this and 

they survived. They had a sense of greater meaning and purpose 

in their life. They felt more religious. They felt more connected to 

their fellow citizens. So that strength was something that seemed 

to be buffering people from the worst excesses of this emotional crisis. 

Now, this kind of positive effect has been found in the past. However, we know that this kind of psychological adrenaline goes away 

in about a year. Fortunately, in most disasters the crisis period 

also goes away in a year. Construction efforts are made and so 

forth. That has not been the case here. And as a result, when we 

looked at our follow-up survey, the first survey that was about a 

year later, close to 2 years after the hurricane, rather than the typical pattern one finds where prevalence goes down, we found either 

stabilization of the prevalence, no decrease at all in the New Orleans metro area, and an actual increase in the prevalence of serious 

emotional problems in the areas outside the New Orleans metro 

area—Alabama, Mississippi, the other parts of Louisiana—and 

suicidality, a dramatic increase across the board in the New Orleans metro area as well as in the rest of the hurricane area. About 

half the people who were affected emotionally in a really clinically 

significant way have been in some kind of treatment. Most of that 

treatment has been medications, not psychotherapy. Most of it has 

been delivered by primary care physicians. Most of the psychiatrists that have been involved in this effort—as you mentioned already, there is a smaller number—they have been focused on the 

people who had pre-existing mental disorders, that severe, persistent population. The nuanced cases that we have already talked 

about, the people who are doing well—and these are new cases— 

31 

1The prepared statement of Dr. Osofsky appears in the Appendix on page 113. 

they are mostly being seen by primary care doctors and being given 

pills without any psychotherapy. 

This is a problem, and as many speakers have said already, in 

a situation of this sort when you have a lot more need and lower 

resources, we are in a tough situation. There is a need to expand 

services. But at the same time, I want to emphasize that it is also 

important to realize that no matter what the expansion of services, 

it is unlikely to be adequate for the need. And so in addition to just 

expanding services, we have to think creatively about how to make 

those services as cost-effective and stretch as far as they can. There 

are some interesting models that are out there: Commission Corps 

we just heard about from Kathryn Power, but also there is telepsychiatry, collaborative care models where psychiatrists part-time 

consult with primary care physicians to expand their services, patient program matching things. And these are things that it seems 

to me we have to encourage work to be done on in the future. 

Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, and I am going to be getting back 

to that final point in my line of questioning, because I think that 

is really key to helping to solve the crisis that we are in, and I 

thank you. 

Dr. Osofsky. 

TESTIMONY OF HOWARD J. OSOFSKY, M.D., PH.D.1 CHAIRMAN, 

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER 

Dr. OSOFSKY. Senator Landrieu, Members of the Subcommittee, 

thank you very much for asking me to testify today. This testimony 

is not about pointing fingers; rather, it is about the real problems 

of real children and adolescents in the greater New Orleans area. 

I want to focus on the dilemma that these children and adolescents face in having their mental health service needs met. The resources and funding provided do not adequately address the mental 

health treatment service needs of the tens of thousands of children 

traumatized by Hurricane Katrina and further traumatized by the 

continuing stresses due to the slow recovery. 

The Stafford Disaster Relief Act Crisis Counseling Program, including the Specialized Crisis Counseling Program, while helpful, 

prohibits mental health diagnosis and treatment. Children and 

adolescents, while resilient and pleased to be back home, are in 

desperate need of proven outreach clinical evaluation and treatment services. Collaborative efforts of LSUHSC trauma trained 

mental health professionals and returning school districts have 

demonstrated the importance of integrating mental health services 

in school and preschool settings to provide support and needed 

therapeutic help in a destigmatized manner. 

The devastation to children and families resulting from the displacement and significant losses of all that was familiar as a result 

of Hurricane Katrina provides a unique perspective on the effects 

of this disaster. Our data gathered since the storm demonstrates 

the widespread nature of this disaster which personally affected 

the majority of children assessed. In addition to the data we subVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
32 

1The prepared statement of Dr. Townsend appears in the Appendix on page 117. 

mitted, during the second year after Hurricane Katrina, the 2006– 

2007 school year, well over half of the 7,000 children assessed in 

the most heavily devastated Orleans, Plaquemines, and St. Bernard parishes had still not returned to their pre-storm homes. Over 

40 percent still met the cut-off for mental health referral indicating 

the chronic effect of this disaster on children and adolescents. We 

currently are receiving many and increasing numbers of referrals 

and requests for mental health evaluation and services from school 

personnel and parents. The students referred are having severe 

school difficulties—academic, behavioral, emotional, and risk-taking. The scientific consensus is that we cannot leave these cries for 

help unanswered. Without adequate mental health services, we can 

count on these children having increased incidences of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and decreased ability to meet 

their potential. We strongly believe, and available evidence has 

proven, that these negative outcomes can be prevented if adequate 

mental health evaluation, diagnosis, and services can be provided. 

Some lessons we have learned: 

One, it is perfectly clear that we need a better national plan for 

children and families following disasters that can be funded at the 

Federal level and implemented and channeled at the local level. 

Two, the Stafford Disaster Relief Act should be revised to allow 

for needed mental health evaluation and treatment services. 

Three, mental health services after a major disaster need to be 

funded on a long term basis not only to address current problems, 

but to prevent serious mental health and behavioral sequelae. 

Four, if volunteers are to be used effectively, they need to be 

trained in trauma-focused services for children before being deployed. 

Five, mental health services have been and should be increasingly provided in child- and family-friendly settings such as schools 

and preschools. 

In closing, we very much appreciate your efforts to help these 

children and families. We beseech you that if there are resources 

and discretionary funds available from FEMA and SAMHSA, these 

funds should be provided immediately for evidence-based mental 

health services for these struggling children, adolescents, and families who so desperately need them. It is clear that this funding is 

needed now to prevent irreparable damage to children traumatized 

by Hurricane Katrina. Your leadership has made and can make all 

the difference. 

Thank you for your attention to this important matter, and I will 

be glad to provide either more data or clinical vignettes to demonstrate what we are discussing. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you very much. Dr. Townsend. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK H. TOWNSEND, M.D., DFAPA,1 PROFESSOR AND VICE CHAIRMAN FOR GENERAL PSYCHIATRY, 

DIRECTOR OF PSYCHIATRY, MEDICAL CENTER OF LOUISIANA AT NEW ORLEANS 

Dr. TOWNSEND. Thank you, Senator Landrieu and Members of 

the Subcommittee, for letting me testify to you about our achieveVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
33 

ments and challenges. Since July of this year, I have been the Director of Psychiatry for the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans, which is a part of the LSU Hospitals Health Care Services 

Division. Our medical center consists of the newly renovated LSU 

interim hospital as well as comprehensive and specialty clinics 

throughout the region. Our department is composed of faculty 

mainly from the psychiatry departments of LSU, chaired by Dr. 

Howard Osofsky, and also from Tulane University. We have been 

given the mandate to provide psychiatric treatment to a city that, 

as you know, has survived many other traumas, only to be in part 

irreparably flooded in August 2005. 

One such flooded place was Charity Hospital, which is where I 

worked, which was second oldest continually operating public hospital in the United States, which is now closed. Charity Hospital 

at one time had 2,500 beds. At the time of the storm, psychiatry 

staffed 92 of them. Although with relatively fewer beds, Charity’s 

emergency department experienced an enormous volume. We handled about 600 psychiatric emergencies a month. Most of those 

were treated successfully and returned to the community within 24 

hours, and that was in our crisis intervention unit. 

Of course, because of that I am keenly and personally aware of 

what we have lost at Charity, and I am happy to be able to work 

with the LSU Hospitals administration to preserve what I think 

were the best aspects of treatment at Charity while we all transition to a new and more flexible system of care. We have to be flexible because we have lost much of the bricks and mortar that 

housed the previous system. And we have to take new approaches 

because patients are best treated and stabilized in the community. 

They have to not present to emergency departments and have to 

not be admitted to hospitals. I also think we must identify at-risk 

youth, as has been already said, to prevent those with psychiatric 

illness from being identified and literally treated as criminals. If 

arrested, we must divert these people from prison and address 

their psychiatric medical illness. 

Two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, Charity 

Hospital and its 92 psychiatric beds remain closed. The medical 

center now directs medical and surgical treatment from its smaller, 

sister—University Hospital. Comprehensive psychiatric services 

have been planned for LSU’s new teaching hospital, but that will 

be 5 years down the line. Today, the region lacks most of its prestorm inpatient psych beds, even though its people have not only 

largely returned, but also have demonstrated persistently elevated 

rates of mental illness. And as you have shown there, New Orleans 

had more than 300 licensed beds prior to the storm. 

However, progress is being made. In September of this year, the 

LSU interim hospital opened new psychiatric inpatient units uptown New Orleans at DePaul Hospital in a leased building. DePaul 

hospital had served the region for about 100 years by providing a 

full range of psychiatric services for adults and children. And LSU 

Hospitals hopes to open approximately 40 beds on that site, which 

is an extremely positive development but, still, the city has less 

than a third of its former inpatient beds. 

I also want to say that LSU is also addressing other important 

needs. The LSU interim hospital has created an emergency room. 

34 

It is called an emergency room extension that is handling 200 psychiatric patients a month. We have also opened 20 medical detox 

beds, and I have to say the LSU psychiatry outpatient clinics, 

which were largely staffed by members of the LSU psychiatry faculty, opened very early, way back in October 2005. But recent 

grants, including the much needed primary care access and stabilization grant, have allowed LSU to expand its office space and 

also its culturally sensitive programs for patients of all ages. 

Both LSU and Tulane medical schools have demonstrated tremendous resiliency to be able to be present in New Orleans today. 

And LSU Hospitals’ medical centers are more than able to provide 

top-quality psychiatric education. But as we discussed already 

today, the region itself continues to lack key pieces of public health 

infrastructure. I am going to summarize what I think those would 

be. 

These next steps are very complex. Charity’s CIU, which Dr. Stephens referenced, was able to treat people so efficiently, 600 people 

a month, because it was well staffed and the community had sufficient inpatient, respite, step-down, and group home beds. More 

mental health professionals, not just psychiatrists, which we have 

spoken about today, but others—psychologists, social workers, rehabilitation counselors, recreation therapists—all need to be lured 

back into the area to resume clinical practice if we are to open 

these hospitals and these facilities. And community services must 

be increased so that crises can be defused, where they should be, 

within the neighborhoods and not within emergency rooms. And, finally, criminal justice diversion programs have to be developed for 

individuals with psychiatric illness whose behavioral symptoms 

have led to arrest. They must be diverted from our jails. 

Senator Landrieu, I want to express my sincere thanks to you for 

allowing me to speak about our progress and our challenges, and 

I am grateful for the assistance that you have already provided, 

and I look forward to assisting you in the work yet to come. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you all very much for your testimony. 

Let me begin, Dr. Kessler, with you, where you ended your opening remarks. Could you give three or four specific recommendations, which I think are included in your statement, about new 

strategies, kind of more effective approaches? Because you hit the 

nail on the head when you said that there is basically not enough 

money in the bank to cover the needs that have been expressed 

and described here. 

Assuming, however, that we can identify some additional 

resources, it is going to take a combination of some additional resources and some change of strategy or innovations or new tools or 

methods or approaches. 

Could you comment from your view, having conducted this fairly 

large study, on what some of those effective approaches might be? 

Mr. KESSLER. Sure. Well, the study itself does not tell us anything about effective strategies, but we know from past experience 

that emergency psychiatric medicine has been an area where we 

have lagged in our development of effective strategies because 

emergency situations are emergencies, and we jump in and do the 

best we can. As you probably know, for many years debriefing was 

this method that was considered to be the first thing to do where 

35 

paraprofessionals would go and talk to people about their experiences and let them work them out and so forth. We now know on 

the basis of just recent controlled studies that not only does debriefing not work, it actually hurts people. 

Now the development of psychological first aid just in the past 

few years has been shown to be a much more effective strategy. 

The problem is we do not have a lot of things in our bag of tricks 

that we know to be effective things that work specifically in crisis 

situations. And in this particular crisis, we do not have anything 

that we can pull out right now and say it works. 

However, during a crisis of this sort is exactly the time where 

some limited amount of incremental resources should be devoted to 

trying new things, to think about the next crisis down the line. It 

is a hard thing to do when we are in the middle of this emergency, 

but as you mentioned at the onset, disasters are becoming increasingly common in America, $50 billion a year of infrastructure damaged, on average, each year for the past decade in the United 

States. The number of people in the aging population who are moving to coastal areas where they are subject to these things is increasing. This is not just a one-time thing. This is an opportunity 

to learn something about how we can do better during the next disaster and the next after that. 

So I hope that in the midst of jumping in and trying to plug our 

hole in the dike at this particular time, we divert some resources 

to thinking creatively about things that we do not yet know whether they work but there is potential. I mentioned telepsychiatry, 

which is something that is a development in rural areas in America, but is something that has a potential here. We know that telephonic cognitive behavioral therapy has now been shown to work 

almost as well as face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy, and 

there are a lot of people that could profit from that. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Interpreting that to mean counseling over 

telephone? 

Mr. KESSLER. Yes, counseling over the telephone. And there is 

good evidence now that this is quite effective, and one of the resources that we have in crisis situations is that there are many 

people around the country who are willing to help. They do not 

have any structure to do that. There are psychiatrists, social workers, clinical psychologists all around America who would be willing 

to donate 2 hours a week if we had a system that would allow them 

to do that. We know that on September 11, 2001 the problem was 

that there was an inundation of an army of people who wanted to 

help, but there was no mechanism to get the help to the people. 

If we could devote some resources to coordination of allowing the 

resources that are potentially available to get to people, there is 

one good one. 

A second one that is of great value is something called collaborative care models where psychiatrists do not work with patients 

but work with primary care doctors, so each doctor—one psychiatrist is connected to 10 primary care doctors, so when the primary 

care doctor finds a patient that has an emotional problem that is 

well beyond the skill level of the primary care doctor, they have 

one psychiatrist who they talk to 3 days a week, and it extends 

those rare resources in ways that could be useful. 

36 

These are just two examples. I do not know if they are the best, 

but the idea is—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. No, I think they are excellent, and I would 

really urge you—and I know your time is very valuable and limited. But any other ideas like that that you could present in writing 

or in conversations with the staff to this Subcommittee would be 

appreciated. 

Mr. KESSLER. Sure. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Because we intend to make some of these 

strong recommendations for the future, and I particularly am interested in your noting that a larger and larger segment of the population is moving towards the coast, not in every case but I think 

the details would suggest that these are retired—in some instances, retired elderly, and hurricanes and other disasters have a 

disproportionate effect on older people, as I have just observed from 

our limited background in this. But I think this is a very important 

issue for our country, the aging of the population, the increased incidence of major disasters, particularly this hurricane-prone region 

of the Gulf Coast, Florida, and the East Coast. 

The other point I wanted you to just—and I want to be clear that 

I heard this correctly. You said that your study so far has indicated 

that some of the initial counseling was not only not helpful but it 

was potentially harmful. Could you go over that one more time? 

Mr. KESSLER. There is something called ‘‘psychological debriefing,’’ which was popular for many years among paraprofessionals, 

and Dr. Osofsky can tell you more details about it. But it was essentially the idea of telling people about your trauma, reliving it, 

getting it out of your system, and sort of catharsis. And that was 

something that was a commonly done thing. It was sort of the 

norm in the field of disaster medicine. We move in and we have 

all these essentially lay people debrief trauma victims. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And let people tell their story so they will feel 

better. 

Mr. KESSLER. And there have now been some studies that have 

shown that it does not work. As a matter of fact, not only doesn’t 

it work, but since they do it in groups, what it really does is it 

retraumatizes so everybody hears everybody else’s story and they 

go away feeling worse. 

Because we were in the midst of doing all these—running around 

and doing this stuff in crises, nobody took a step back and said let’s 

systematically see whether that works or not. So taking a step back 

and sort of thinking carefully about what works and what does not 

has the potential to leverage our limited resources by getting us to 

invest more in the things that do work rather than the things that 

do not work. And right now we are in a knowledge deficit situation. 

We have a lot of good psychotherapies that we know that work in 

general, but what works particularly for particular people in these 

situations we do not know. So there is a lot that we need to discover about what is most cost-effective in these kinds of populations that could help us leverage those rare resources in ways 

that we cannot. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And, finally, has anyone from any Federal 

agency approached you with a plan to do exactly as you have outVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 038986 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38986.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
37 

lined, trying to invest some research dollars and trying to find out 

what works? 

Mr. KESSLER. No, they have not, but there are these interesting 

things, and Project Liberty, for example, where, as you probably 

know, there was a hotline set up to refer people who called for help 

to professionals who volunteered to provide free help, over 400,000 

people were referred to psychotherapy in New York. Not a single 

piece of information was collected on whether any of those people 

went, whether the psychotherapy worked, what kind of psychotherapy they got. But there is an opportunity to set up systems of 

this sort that with just a little bit extra data collection we could 

see what things worked and what did not, what worked for what 

kinds of people. Instead of referring somebody just to the 

psychotherapist who is closest to you, maybe we will discover that 

women profit more from interpersonal and men from cognitive behavioral therapy, and there should be more matching of people to 

places. 

A one-percent increment in the investment of resources and 

thinking that through could have a dramatic multiplier effect in 

the effectiveness of what we can do. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And the cost savings. 

Dr. Osofsky, do you currently know of any program that is reaching specifically out to teachers or to educators as they come back 

to the community to stand up their schools, any particular programs that are helping them to then be able to help the children 

or the parents that they come into contact with? Because that 

would seem to me to be one effective strategy. Is there anything 

that you are aware of currently that is being funded in either Louisiana, Mississippi, or the Gulf Coast area? 

Dr. OSOFSKY. If I could just take one moment to comment on the 

points Dr. Kessler was making. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Go ahead. 

Dr. OSOFSKY. We have been working with Dr. Speier on the idea 

of training even within the Crisis Counseling Program, within the 

Specialized Services Program, to train the counselors in what we 

call learning collaboratives about mental health approaches that 

can be of help, so that not only within the limits of the program, 

the effectiveness they can do, but also they then can go back into 

their communities and have other positions, the additional skill 

sets that they will have. And we are also working with the States 

on the telemedicine program, especially in the child and adolescent 

area, but in psychiatry to help expand services to other parts of the 

State. But I think these are crucial. 

I do want to let you know that we have actually been screening— 

at the schools’ request—teachers and to try and provide additional 

services for them, because we are dealing with individuals who 

themselves are very traumatized, who need to deal with the traumatized children and adolescents, and then at the end of the day 

also have to deal with their own issues that they are going 

through. And this comes up over and over again. 

What I think would also be effective—and we actually find there 

is great acceptance of it, and we do training for teachers about red 

flags and how to look for things and how to respond in classrooms, 

but also to extend this further, I find the pediatricians, primary 

38 

care doctors, nurse practitioners would be very responsive to this 

type of approach in a way where—for example, we have seen so 

many youngsters come in who are on large amounts of medication 

that are inappropriate, or some who need medication or they need 

other types of treatment. But we see this with adults, too, and the 

issue of trying to look at the impact of trauma itself and how to 

differentiate and how to respond, how to recognize when there will 

be problems and how to best intervene. And I really do think this 

could be a very positive thing that could come out of all of the collective experience and not only help in our State but help in the 

country as well. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Our time is limited, so I just have one 

more question for you, Dr. Townsend. Given the statistics of the 

lack of professionals that are back serving—and I realize the problem is broader of the solutions than just recruiting, but it has been 

mentioned by several members of this panel today. What is LSU 

either doing or recommending, or Tulane, for that matter, what 

could the State be doing, or the Federal Government, to help you 

recruit the professionals you need to help re-staff, if you will, the 

mental health network? 

Dr. TOWNSEND. I think there are two parts to that. Looking 

ahead, unfortunately, all of us seem to be talking about the next 

disaster where we can collect data, which, of course, there will be 

one. If there was a way beforehand to stabilize the workforce, just 

basic profession-specific counseling, psychiatrist to psychiatrist, 

psychologist to psychologist, to buy books for people to replace their 

offices, would have, I think, kept some people from leaving the 

area. But now there is discipline-specific money that needs to be 

available. I understand there was nursing money that has now run 

out. There was money to attract physicians. In my opinion, that is 

not nearly enough. And the group of people that seems to be preventing us from opening that next wave of hospital beds is not 

nurses; it is licensed clinical social workers. 

So we have to come up with a way of having meaningful—and 

I guess even though it seems like a lot of money, for some reason 

it is not meaningful enough to attract people to south Louisiana— 

meaningful amounts of money targeted in ways that get people to 

come down. I am very appreciative and I like the idea of this mobilization corps, but those people will have places where they definitely can be used and definitely where it is not appropriate because of the lack of continuity of care. And, of course, we need people who are going to invest in living in south Louisiana or south 

Mississippi and other places for several years to come. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Do we know what the current recruitment either bonus is—what is it for nurses or medical professionals? Do 

we know? 

We will get the information, but I think the Federal Government 

has initiated a small program for recruiting for health care professionals, and I will look into it and get it put into the record. I do 

not know if any—— 

Dr. OSOFSKY. We do have that. The one piece is—we have actually been very fortunate in retaining professionals and recruiting. 

It is not just having the bonuses to perhaps have people come, but 

the funding so that we can guarantee their salaries because I do 

39 

find people who are very willing to come here and want to participate and hopefully to live and stay here. 

Senator LANDRIEU. This would be a good point to end the panel. 

Part of it is not only just recruiting the professionals to either stay 

or come back, incentives to stay or come back, but it is also then 

leveraging, as Dr. Kessler said, the nonprofit sector, the volunteer 

sector, to enhance the capacity to deliver services at a fraction of 

a cost, as opposed to just thinking about one-to-one counseling, doctors, social workers, etc. 

So these are some very excellent ideas. I thank you all very much 

for being a part of the panel today. We have gone over time, but 

it has been, I think, a very interesting and worthwhile discussion, 

so we look forward to visiting with you all and keeping up as we 

develop better strategies to deal with the ongoing crisis in the Gulf 

Coast and prepare better in the future. 

Thank you, and the hearing will come to an end. 

[Whereupon, at 4:56 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(41) 

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