Texas Physician Volunteers Sleep on Clinic Floors to Care for Harvey Survivors

Mosquitoes, Medicine and Mold: Texas Battles Post-Harvey Health Issues
NBC News
by MAGGIE FOX
September 9, 2017

Zika mosquito 'heaven'

So far, there's no big epidemic to cope with. The Harris County Health Department had to squelch rumors that plague was being spread by flood waters. Plague is carried by fleas, not in water.

Dr. Luke LeBas works on a patient at Code 3 ER and Urgent Care in Rockport, Texas. For-profit and free clinics alike across southeast Texas are struggling to cope with a deluge of patients after Harvey's floods devastated communities. Danado Saltarelli, RN / Courtesy Dr. Luke LeBas

Dr. Carrie de Moor has a nasty cough, and she’s not sure if it's allergies or one of the common respiratory infections that have been spreading since Hurricane Harvey hit southeast Texas late last month.

She's been sleeping in a trailer adjacent to her free-standing emergency room and urgent care clinic in Rockport, Texas, which was devastated by Harvey’s winds and flood waters. The clinic had only been open for two weeks when Harvey hit. De Moor is home in Dallas now for a few days with her children but will soon head back to the clinic, which is overwhelmed by people crowding in for stitches, tetanus shots, ear infections and skin rashes.

"We were seeing numbers outpacing anything we were prepared to take care of," said de Moor, an ER physician who is CEO of Code 3 ER and Urgent Care.

Physician volunteers have been cramming into the trailer and sleeping on the clinic floors as they tend to as many as 90 patients a day.
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