By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – Medical care throughout the River Parishes is slowly returning to stable condition in the days following the arrival of Hurricane Gustav.

The three main hospitals that service St. John, St. Charles and St. James Parishes have all returned to operations, but are offering different levels of service.

The widest level of service can be found at St. James Hospital in Lutcher, which never lost power during the storm.

“We did have an evacuation of our patients prior to the storm, but our emergency power generators kept us going straight through,” said St. James Hospital CEO Mary Ellen Pratt. “We were well staffed and prepared to see patients.”

Pratt said emergency room service, which stayed open throughout the storm, stayed extraordinarily busy throughout the week.

“We probably treated around 45-50 patients a day,” said Pratt. “We even delivered a baby Sunday night. He was a little boy.”

There had been some concern regarding the new building which houses the hospital, which recently opened this past spring, but Pratt said the structure held up extremely well to the high winds in the area.

“I’m very pleased that we saw absolutely no damage,” said Pratt. “We were picking up winds well over 100 miles per hour, and the building sustained it.”

In St. Charles Parish, Public Information Officer Renee Allemand said that St. Charles Hospital in Luling was back online as of Tuesday, after losing power for a brief time at the peak of Gustav’s wrath. Allemand said that the hospital is fully operational and open to seeing patients.

“The building suffered no damage at all, just a loss of power,” said Allemand. “They do not foresee any problems as far as staffing at this time.”

The most pressing hospital concerns are coming from River Parishes Hospital in LaPlace, which just received power Thursday night.

“It was a real struggle getting them back up to speed,” said St. John Public Information Officer Buddy Boe. “The hospital was the first location parish wide to get electricity turned back on.”

Boe said the hospital, which is still under staffed, is only open for emergency services at this time. He said River Parishes Hospital officials are hoping to continue elective services some time next week, once they have had time to assess the next step they will take.