In 1991 I spent 45 days immersed in three Louisiana Charity Hospitals, New Orleans, Shreveport and Lake Charles. Charity has always cared for the regions poor and is considered one the best teaching hospitals in America, if your no other reason than the sheer volume and variety of cases that walk through its doors.

"The poor of New Orleans have always known that Charity is the place to go for good, free or low-cost care...and for decades, Mother Charity has always been there for them..." -from the intro by Jill Jordan Sieder, from Acts of Charity, Louisiana Life Magazine 1991

When Charity Hospital first opened, the nuns of St. Vincent Depaul in Maryland, "The daughters of Charity", were invited to run the hospital. They did for 156 years. Now Sister Josephine Cusimano, at over 70 years of age, is the head of nursing and one of only 9 nuns left. Sister Jo is about to retire and go work in the local housing projects.

Dr. Judi Binderman hands the 1st of Darlene Miller's twins to an intern. Miller's C-section delivery had to be interupted after her epidural was inserted due to another mother who came into the hospital in emergency labor. Another mother was also delivering and the hospital was shortstaffed and had to let Miller sit, naked and unaccompanied, in the delivery room for over an hour.

Darlene Miller gets her first glimpse of her newborn twin daughter. Drs. David McAlpine and Judi Binderman delivered the twins by C-section.

Darlene Miller's daughter, the second of fraternal twins delivered by c_section, cries after getting her footprints stamped and recorded.

Walter Friles, Jr. has been in the ER waiting room for many hours with unspecified ailments. His case is a low priority. At 4 a.m. he gets a blanket to keep him warm. Often the corridors and waiting rooms of Charity are filled to overflowing with the poor of New Orleans who use the ER for everything from headaches to major trauma. Waits of over 8 hours to see someone from the overwhelmed staff are not uncommon.

Security guards are force to restrain a belligerent patient. Drs. suspect an overdose on alcohol or drugs and patients tend to dislike the treatment, which is consumption of a thick activated charcoal fluid.

17 year old Doris Davis was stabbed in the back. She roams the halls of the emergency room until the staff can find replacements for her blood soaked clothes.

Dorothy Bennett, Whitfield Mallard, Adaya White, and Orleans Parish prisoner, Connie Miller wait for help in the hallway outside of the medial Emergency Room. Mr. Mallard, an illiterate, has been having seizures and is attended to by a doctor. For those without health insurance, there is no special treatment. One can find oneself waiting for care alongside the homeless, prisoners and the mentally and emotionally challenged.

The number of prisoner patients from the various statewide jails became so large that in in New Orleans they created an entire prison ward in the hospital. Other than when they are in that ward, each prisoner must be accompanied by at least one guard. A significant amount of police manpower is taken up by this function.

An inmate patent shows off scars from an old wound. He was shot in the stomach with a shotgun.

Dr. Paul Maurer attends to Charles Edwards, who has a broken nose and blurred vision after being hit in the face with a board. Patients must often receive treatment in the hallways of ER because there is not enough space to put them.

At "Big Charity", Dr. John Jones works to stabilize a patient critically injured in a motorcycle accident. Big Charity is considered to be one of America's best teaching hospitals. One of the many reasons is the sheer volume and variety of cases that cross its threshold.

Big Charity ER trauma room. As a teaching hospital there is always a roomful of observers for every trauma emergency.

Dr. McSwain (r), a primary teaching physician in the ER, leads at least 20 people through a heart massage in Room 7, the main trauma room. The patient was the victim of a motorcycle accident.

Charles Cox came to N.O. from Hammond when bones were broken from gunshot wounds inflicted by a friend of his. the orthopedic room is the only room with rock music piped in.

Dr. McSwain, the primary teaching physician, takes a group of interns through MER to preview the cases of patients that they may be operating on later.

X-rays of a petient in the psychiatric unit. The x-rays reveal that the patients has been eating various pieces of metal, such as paper clips and screws.

Nathan Thomas, a homeless and unemployed welder was hitchhiking from Florida. He has many bug bites including an infected one that has made his arm numb.

W.O. Moss Regional Hospital in Lake Charles has been downsized from a 108 bed to a 35 bed facility. an empty waiting room that should be full awaits patients that can not now be served. Drs. Andrew Ranier and Harlie Bearden are both part-time consultants at W.O. Moss Regional Hospital in Lake Charles. Here they discuss a case of sexual abuse in the empty waiting room of the hospital which, due to downsizing, is little more than a walk-in clinic.

At Moss Regional Charity Hospital, Dr. Yu attends to patients Jack Latiolais and daughter Sheryl Thibideaux. they are typical of the problems involved in the downsizing of this hospital. Sheryl is pregnant, but will not be able to deliver at Moss because the obstetrics unit is closed. Her mother, who has a broken ankle had to go to a Charity Hospital over 100 miles away because she required surgery that Moss couldn't accomodate.

Dr. Sui Yu has taken over much of the operation of Moss Regional Hospital. In addition to being Chief of Medicine he also recruits other doctors to work for next to nothing. He can often find himself behind mountains of paperwork.

The downsizing of Moss Regional eliminated many departments: Obstetrics, all surgery and the Emergency room. This abandoned bed sits unused. The ER now serves as more of a medical warehouse.

Doctors perform an angioplasty at the Shreveport Charity Hospital.

Dr. Warren Grafton leads sophomore medial students in the LSU Pathology Lab class at Shreveport Charity Hospital.

Burn victim Ronald Barnes was transferred to Shreveport from New Orleans. He is from Gretna, LA and a house fire left him severely burned. Gen. surgery intern Dale Guill attends to Barnes.

Nurse Frances Hawkins changes the IV in George Tillman's arm. Mr. Tillman is frequently here on the fifth floor for the men's side of ward-style beds. A floor reserved for very sick or terminal patients.

Chantel Bacchus was hit by a car and broke her arm. Her father, Earl, and mother, Cathy Howard, a CHNO employee, comfort her.

Desiree Loeb, a health education coordinator for the NO Aids Task Force, gives a condom demonstration to Douglas Richardson in C-100, the " Big Charity" Aids clinic.

Aids patient Clarence Childress shows his knitting to social worker Amy Lee Wilson during his stay in adult isolation. Childress spends his time in the adult isolation unit knitting. He is HIV positive and has been in the unit for 21 days. His white blood cell count is almost high enough for him to be released.

Death in the ER. The victim of a motorcycle accident awaits transfer to the morgue.

Death in the ER. The victim of a motorcycle accident awaits transfer to the morgue.

Ironic notes on the whiteboard in the doctor's lounge. Right outside the door lays the body of a deceasd patient.

In 1991 I got an assignment from Louisiana Life Magazine.  In the early 90's National Healthcare was getting attention. Louisiana's Charity Hospital System had a unique was of caring for the state's underprivileged populations. My assignment was to spend a few days on the story, but I immediately realized that this was a much bigger story. I asked if it was ok if I shot much, much more than asked. The magazine paid a space rate rather than a day rate, so they had no problems with that at all.

In all, I spent about a month and a half immersed in 3 of the states facilities, New Orleans, Shreveport and Lake Charles, each of which had some very unique features. I had a blanket release for all employees of the hospitals, but had to get signed releases from every patient photographed. The magazine ended up running 3 times the amount of images that they had originally intended. The story ended up winning a 1992 Press Club Award and It has been one of the most meaningful projects of my career.