The New Orleans Musicians' Clinic (NOMC) is a health service providing New Orleans musicians access to affordable medical services utilizing such facilities as a medical school, volunteers, and community providers. The NOMC hosts community blood drives including live performers supporting the Blood Center of New Orleans. [1] [2]
The NOMC is a subsidiary arm of the New Orleans Musicians' Assistance Foundation (NOMAF) and was founded as a partnership with Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center together with a group of advocates including Jack McConnell and Bethany Bultman, who is also the current CEO and president. [3] [4]
The NOMC was the brain-child of Dr. Jack McConnell MD (retired), [5] as he performed "Bill Bailey" with the rock band Phish , at the 1997 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
McConnell met with a team of health advocates for the working poor in Louisiana and musicians' advocates to come up with a medical safety net for New Orleans' musicians. Louisiana has had universal health care since the 1930s, when Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long (1928–1932) pushed a number of bills through the 1929 session of the Louisiana State Legislature to fulfill campaign promises including an universal health program for hospitals and universal "charity" care. [6] In 1995, McConnell set out to design a comprehensive health care system to treat musicians. [7]
The NOMC's expanded social services include the registration of patients in pharmaceutical assistance programs, crisis and case management, electronic medical records, identifying musician-patients, referral to and follow-up with appropriate agencies, and involvement in regular meetings with partnering organizations to provide outreach to patients in non-clinical settings. [7] The clinic is also involved in local government efforts to improve the health of musicians, such as supporting a ban on smoking in New Orleans bars. [8]
The NOMC works with neighborhood groups like the Musicians' Protective Union. In the Tremé neighborhood (the historic birthplace of Jazz), NOMC collaborated to create the St. Anna's Episcopal Church Musicians' Mission, a lively jam session held weekly, which includes a free meal and a "resource hall", providing multiple services such as 5 point anti-stress acupuncture, legal advice, housing assistance, and medical and mental health screenings, and social service referrals. [7]
The New Orleans Musicians Assistance Foundation (NOMAF) evolved from the NOMC following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, sharing the mission and promise to keep New Orleans music alive. NOMAF encompasses the Musicians' Clinic as well as the NOMAF Gig Fund, which provides occupational opportunities for our musicians, the Emergency Fund, the Prevent Death by Lifestyle Program to engage our patients in their own wellness strategies, the Herman Ernest Memorial Health Screening Initiative which provides head and neck cancer screenings in conjunction with the Interfaith community and the Tulane University School of Medicine.
The Herman Ernest Memorial Screening Initiative is a component of NOMAF's partnership with Healing Hands Across the Divide (HHAD), a public outreach program of the Department of Otolaryngology at Tulane University School of Medicine. This program honors the life of Herman "Roscoe" Ernest III and was formed in March 2011, shortly after he died from oral cancer. Before his death, Roscoe challenged his medical support staff at NOMAF and his doctors at Tulane to promote head and neck cancer awareness, prevention, and early detection throughout his community. African Americans have twice the mortality rate of their non-African American counterparts, [9] and this is in part due to African Americans presenting with a late stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis. [10] Early detection of such cancers is key to improving survival rates. Since March 2011, HHAD has partnered with several local churches and community events to spread awareness about head and neck cancers and conduct cancer screenings . This project is important for all members of the community but especially musicians due to their increased occupational exposure to tobaccos and alcohol, both risk factors for developing head and neck cancer.
The Tulane University School of Medicine is the medical school of Tulane University, a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. The school is located in the Medical District of the New Orleans Central Business District.
Alton Ochsner Sr. was an American surgeon and medical researcher who worked at Tulane University and other New Orleans hospitals before he established The Ochsner Clinic. Now known as Ochsner Medical Center, the clinic is the flagship hospital of Ochsner Health System. Among its many services are heart transplants.
The Common Ground Health Clinic is a non-profit organization that provides quality health care in Algiers and Gretna, Louisiana. Common Ground Health Clinic provides programs to address community health care needs through collaborative partnerships. The clinic started on September 9, 2005, just days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.
The Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans is a public university focused on the health sciences and located in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is part of the LSU System and is the home of six schools, 12 Centers of Excellence, and two patient care clinics. Due to Hurricane Katrina, the School of Dentistry was temporarily located in Baton Rouge but has since returned to its campus in New Orleans. As a public university, it mostly accepts residents of the state of Louisiana with the exception of combined M.D./Ph.D. students and also children of alumni.
Charity Hospital was one of two teaching hospitals which were part of the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans (MCLNO), the other being University Hospital. Three weeks after the events of Hurricane Katrina, then-Governor Kathleen Blanco said that Charity Hospital would not reopen as a functioning hospital. The Louisiana State University System, which owns the building, stated that it had no plans to reopen the hospital in its original location. It chose to incorporate Charity Hospital into the city's new medical center in the lower Mid-City neighborhood. The new hospital completed in August 2015 was named University Medical Center New Orleans.
Mary Stults Sherman was an American orthopedic surgeon and cancer researcher affiliated with the University of Chicago and the Oschsner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans. Her 1964 murder remains unsolved.
As a result of Hurricane Katrina and its effects on New Orleans, Tulane University was closed for the second time in its history—the first being during the American Civil War. The university closed for four months during Katrina, as compared to four years during the Civil War.
New Orleans Emergency Medical Services is the primary provider of advanced life support emergency medical services to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Unlike most other emergency medical services in the United States, New Orleans EMS operates as a third service and is not part of the New Orleans Fire Department; rather, New Orleans EMS is operated by the New Orleans Health Department and the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
The Tulane Medical Center is a hospital located in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Tulane Medical Center has centers covering nearly all major specialties of medicine, and is the primary teaching hospital for the Tulane University School of Medicine. The hospital is jointly owned by Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) (82.5%) and Tulane University (17.5%). Tulane University and LCMC announced on October 10, 2022, that LCMC would purchase Tulane Medical Center from HCA for $150 Million.
Healthcare in New Orleans includes a combination of hospitals, clinics, and other organization for the residents of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Herman Ernest III, best known as Roscoe, was an American drummer in the New Orleans funk scene, and is best known for his drumming in Dr. John's band the Lower 911 for almost 30 years. "Renowned for his larger-than-life personality Roscoe was both a powerful percussionist and steadfast individual." He played drums on Dr. John's Trippin' Live, released on July 29, 1997, under the Wind-Up record label, which was recorded over a week in London in 1996 at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club.
Benjamin P. Sachs is a physician with health care management experience at the Harvard Medical School hospitals and the Tulane University Medical Center.
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) is a cancer treatment and research center in Seattle, Washington. Established in 1998, this nonprofit provides clinical oncology care for patients treated at its three partner organizations: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle Children's and UW Medicine. Together, these four institutions form the Fred Hutch/University of Washington Cancer Consortium.
University Medical Center New Orleans (UMCNO), is a 446-bed non-profit, public, research and academic hospital located in the Tulane - Gravier neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, providing tertiary care for the southern Louisiana region and beyond. University Medical Center New Orleans is one of the region's only university-level academic medical centers. The hospital is operated by the LCMC Health System and is the largest hospital in the system. UMCNO is affiliated with the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, Tulane University School of Medicine, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Delgado Community College, Dillard University, Our Lady of Holy Cross College, Southern University at New Orleans, and Xavier University of Louisiana. UMCNO is also an ACS designated level I trauma center and has a rooftop helipad to handle medevac patients.
Elizabeth Terrell Hobgood "Terry" Fontham is an American cancer epidemiologist, public health researcher, and founding dean of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health.
One Note at a Time is a British/American documentary film directed by Renee Edwards. The film follows New Orleans musicians post-Hurricane Katrina. It is dedicated to the late drummer Herman Roscoe Ernest. The film was officially released in the UK and Ireland in 2018 and is due for release in the US and Canada during 2019.
LCMC Health System is a nonprofit network of healthcare providers in Southern Louisiana, based out of New Orleans. Members include academic centers, acute care facilities, and research hospitals. LCMC Health, along with Ochsner, dominate the Louisiana health and hospital space.
Kwaku Ohene-Frempong was a Ghanaian pediatric hematologist-oncologist and an expert in sickle cell disease (SCD). Ohene-Frempong grew up in Ghana and was a standout athlete in track-and-field, later competing for Yale University as well as Ghana at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games. He continued his medical training in the United States, where he completed medical school, pediatrics residency and a pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship. With a professional interest in SCD, Ohene-Frempong was a physician and involved in public health initiatives at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, and later the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in Pennsylvania. He continued professional relationships with Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana where he later became a full-time physician after retiring from CHOP. In Ghana, he established public health initiatives for SCD screening in newborns, as well as an SCD clinic for patients with the disease.