Giant Sucking Sound II

Giant Sucking Sound (II)In November (Giant Sucking Sound) I noted that headhunters nationwide were likely to take advantage of Hurricane Katrina by recruiting physicians and nurses away from New Orleans. Looks like it has happened, based on today's New York Times:

Hundreds or perhaps thousands of doctors and nurses never returned to New Orleans after the flood; long-term and psychiatric hospitals, not to mention hospices and rehabilitation centers, are now almost nonexistent in and around the city.The city's sickest residents were among the first to leave New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and should be the last to return, but that is not happening, said Dr. John Wales, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at East Jefferson, which for days has had more patients than it has beds. "I think they're coming back and the doctors who took care of them are not around," he said.