Don Smithburg
Don Smithburg
buildings easy secure
We're doing everything that we can to secure the buildings. We know that these buildings are sieves ... They have easy access.
cannot fast heroic people staff
Our heroic staff cannot keep going much longer. We can't get our people out fast enough.
We don't have that luxury, if you will.
funding restore
We need funding to partially restore New Orleans.
attach bring changed highly skeptical systems
We are highly skeptical that you can bring in 2006 systems and attach them to 1938 systems and make it all work, when so much has changed technologically.
project
We are going to get this project out on the street.
believe both buildings charity forced hospital hospitals leave main start university
Both of our main hospital buildings at Charity and University Hospitals are uninhabitable for health-care purposes. We don't believe it will ever be inhabitable again. We are forced to leave those buildings and start with a new footprint.
health historic joining public represents today
Today represents really an historic joining of two public health systems.
avoid move trying
What we're trying to avoid is having to move more than once.
great people preserve terms
It's such a great area, in terms of accessibility, people know where it is, ambulances can get there, so we want to preserve that geography.
buildings information last
The last information I have is that all of the buildings are empty.
charity full
Our morgue at Big Charity is full and it is under water.
brink cope unable
Some of them are on the brink of unable to cope any longer.
emergency filled growing hospitals operating patient
The hospitals that are operating are filled to the brim. The emergency departments are clogged up with long queues that see a growing patient population.