Hurricane Katrina blew great change into the nursing home industry in New Orleans. In an interview with Joseph Donchess, executive director of the Nursing Home Association of Louisiana (www.lnha.org) on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, GMMR discussed those changes and the lessons learned in the past year. This is the first installment in this interview.

“Today, in the four-parish area, 16 to 18 nursing homes remain closed. Many that remain open are operating at a fraction of their capacity,” Mr. Donchess said. There is a real question as to what is the need in the region.

Mr. Donchess said the issue of the region’s need for services was being asked well before Katrina occurred. Today, there is greater urgency to this question as the industry struggles to determine the real need after so many of the nursing home residents were dispersed throughout the United States.

Compounding the issue is a tremendous labor shortage. Wages have doubled from about $6 per hour to over $12 per hour for nurse aids — with little impact on the ability to staff facilities. The industry is looking at bringing in nurses from overseas and at fast-track training.

But Mr. Donchess believes the real challenge is finding affordable housing in the region for industry labor. What housing is available is too far away to make the economics work for nurse aids to commute, and there is little viable housing in New Orleans. Until the housing problem is solved, the New Orleans nursing home industry will continue to struggle. And that could be for many more years.