Della Hasselle

Dr Veronica Gillispie-Bell Explains the Impact of Implicit Bias on Maternity Care

"We really have to work on our implicit bias, acknowledging it, understanding it, and doing the work to try to change it," Veronica Gillispie-Bell, MD, MAS, says.

Small university in Louisiana to create new medical school

A small, historically Black university in Louisiana has plans to create a new medical school in New Orleans. The school made the announcement last April but didn't give a date to apply.

Amid Louisiana's maternal mortality crisis, researchers win major grant to improve care

As Louisiana struggles to tame maternal and infant mortality rates that are among the highest in the developed world, a group of researchers on Friday said they've received a multimillion-dollar

Healthy State Announces Advisory Board, Medical Director - Biz New Orleans

Getty ImagesNEW ORLEANS - From Healthy State and Ochsner Health: Two years ago, Ochsner Health joined the State of Louisiana and Gov. John Bel Edwards to announce Healthy State by 2030, a plan to improve Louisiana's health ranking from 50th to 40th by 2030.

Heart attack victim at airport rescued by New Orleans cardiologist

After Gormley lost consciousness, Dr. Selim Krim a cardiologist at Ochsner Health, with the help of two nearby women, resuscitated him.

Tulane, Ochsner Health and RH Impact awarded $16.5 million grant to address Louisiana's high...

Tulane University, Ochsner Health and the community nonprofit RH Impact have been awarded a seven-year, $16.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a research center of excellence focused on finding solutions to address Louisiana's disproportionately high maternal mortality rate.

A New Orleans man wearing a Fitbit said his life was saved by the device

New Orleans man says a Fitbit device saved his life; now he's alerting others to mind their health

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/health/local-hospital-breaking-barriers-heart-surgery-infants-metairie/289-c272fdb3-d1dd-4b69-bcb5-6a07322411d3

101 academic medical center CEOs to know | 2023

This comprehensive list of 101 academic medical center CEOs to know includes the names of the top CEOs in the country, their backgrounds, and their accomplishments. It it provides insight on how they have led their institutions to success.

Xavier and Ochsner will team up for new medical school: 'Two powerful forces'

Months after Xavier University in New Orleans announced plans to open a new medical school, the university said Tuesday that Louisiana-based health care giant Ochsner Health will be a partner

Ochsner Health and the Urban League of Louisiana Team Up For The Big Health Event

NEW ORLEANS (press release) - The Urban League of Louisiana, and presenting sponsor Ochsner Health, are proud to announce that the free Big Health Event is

The Earnest Provider

"Imagine we're talking just like we are right now, and I have a heart attack."

Xavier, Ochsner Health to create new medical school

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A small, historically Black university known for successfully moving its graduates into medical school says it's a step closer to creating its own medical school in New Orleans with help from a major Louisiana health care system.

Ochsner Extends Partnership with University of Queensland - Biz New Orleans

Photo courtesy of Ochsner HealthNEW ORLEANS (press release) - The University of Queensland and Ochsner Health have extended their unique partnership, pledging to grow the world's physician pipeline in the joint transnational doctor of medicine program through 2030. Officials from the organizations signed a contract on Sept.

https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/covid-surges-in-louisiana-as-delta-varia-idUSRTXFGY83

Overwhelmed by COVID-19: A day inside a Louisiana hospital

The rapidly escalating surge in COVID-19 infections is once again overwhelming hospitals across the U.S.

The AJMC Institute for Value-Based Medicine Hosts "Population Health Innovations for a Healthy...

Held in partnership with Ochsner Health on Sept. 13, event shares strategies to help local health care professionals improve the health of Louisiana...

Hoping to bolster workforce, Delgado and Ochsner unveil nursing, health care training center

Ochsner Health and Delgado Community College have completed a $44 million building on Delgado's New Orleans campus that will house the college's Allied Health Division and Charity School of Nursing

Hit hard by pandemic, Louisiana daycares in line for an 'unprecedented' $773M in COVID aid

Louisiana's hard-hit daycare industry is in store for a $773 million infusion from the $1.9 trillion federal stimulus bill to help operators with coronavirus expenses and parents by expanding access to sites. The day cares, like lots of businesses, have suffered major losses during the pandemic - about 70% were closed at one time last year amid plummeting attendance.

'We're taking steps back': Facing 'anti trans' bills, New Orleans students speak out

Audrey Ligier held her white lace dress as she stepped out of her front door two years ago on the way to her homecoming dance, confident in her choice, as a high school freshman, to publicly shed her boyhood and embrace her identity as a transgender teenage girl.

Why some parents could see up to $3,600 per child under new coronavirus relief bill

For a decade, 38-year-old Nadia Miller has barely made ends meet working as a provider at Clara's Little Lambs Preschool Academy, a daycare on New Orleans Westbank, as she cares for her three sons in their Algiers home. A single mom, Miller typically works 40 hours each week at $14 an hour.

New Orleans schools struggle to keep kids in class as the pandemic drags on, challenging families

Lio Schaefer had long struggled with school attendance. Because he was bored and frequently felt ignored in class, he said he often skipped junior year classes at New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School.

13,000 kids will be in summer school in New Orleans -- triple the normal amount

For a year, Warren Easton Charter High School students spent school days growing restless in front of their computers, as the Mid-City high school operated either virtually or on a hybrid schedule for all of the 2020-21 school year.

Mississippi's homeless students struggle, with little help from schools - The Hechinger Report

Cashawn Hightower was at the end of her rope. Her mother's battles with depression and drug use had ripped her family apart. Failing grades and truancy threatened to keep her from graduating high school. At 17, she was five months pregnant, and could see no future without her diploma.

As classrooms reopen, only 389 Louisiana schools are enrolled in state coronavirus warning system

As thousands of students streamed back into Jefferson and St. Tammany Parish classrooms in recent days, state health and education officials were scrambling to get a new, massive school coronavirus early warning system up and running. By Wednesday, only 389 out of more than 1,800 schools statewide had been enrolled in the early warning system, according to Department of Health spokesperson Aly Neel.

After-hours child care in New Orleans is a 'rare find' for parents working late hours

Jemell Melanson's days stretch late into the night. There are the 12-hour nursing shifts at Ochsner Medical Center. Picking up her two kids at an after-hours child care center in Jefferson. Then a trip across the Huey P. Long Bridge to the house in Harvey.

Beset by coronavirus pandemic, New Orleans teachers face fatigue and anxiety: 'It's overwhelming'

Erin Lyons can't catch up on her sleep. An elementary mathematics teacher at Emmett Gilbert School of Excellence in Avondale, Lyons, 33, has grappled with the myriad complications to education brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Virtual teaching, enforcing social distancing and fears of infection have brought crushing fatigue.

How One State's Budget Cuts Are Trapping Poor Parents

In Louisiana, a lack of governmental assistance has left many without childcare options. Over the summer, Kinsley, then 19 months, was just starting to develop her vocabulary. Sometimes her mom, Christian Gobert, laughed about it, because the word Kinsley knew best was "no."

Louisiana Children's Museum, closed to the public, now a school site: 'The kids are thrilled'

In the Louisiana Children's Museum sunlit art studio, eight kindergartners in Ms. Rhonda Christmas' class sat spaced apart at wooden tables as they worked on tracing letters of the alphabet. Just outside the classroom, in the "Make Your Mark" gallery, one group in Ms. Triege Cotton's pre-kindergarten class played kitchen in a shotgun-style playhouse designed by artist Terrance Osborne, while another tickled the ivories on a child-sized piano.

As New Orleans Catholic schools expand special-needs programs, a closer look at push for inclusion

At a recent Wednesday morning Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Belle Chasse, a choir of middle school students gestured with their arms and fingers as they sang the Sanctus, translating the hymn into sign language.

How New Orleans high schools are planning in-person graduations, parties as restrictions ease

By the first week of school in mid-August, it had already become clear at Lusher Charter School that the pandemic would make for another rough school year, especially for the graduating class, according to 17-year-old senior Mikayla Morse. Like others in New Orleans public schools, Mikayla and her classmates started the year remotely, apart from their friends.

New Orleans schools still struggle with integration - The Hechinger Report

NEW ORLEANS - Six years ago, author and creative writing teacher Anne Gisleson was looking for a school for her 4-year-old son, Otto, who attended a private Lutheran preschool in her Bywater neighborhood. But for kindergarten, she wanted him to attend a public school, with kids from all backgrounds and neighborhoods.

Cost of busing students in New Orleans rises as parents exercise school choice | The Lens

It will cost $30 million to bring students to and from public schools this year, compared to $18 million the year before Katrina. The increase appears to be a consequence of citywide enrollment and the shift from a centrally-run school system. A few schools are working together to negotiate busing contracts.

DATA REPORTING: Nearly half of New Orleans' all-charter district schools got D or F grades; what...

The release of the state's closely watched school performance scores earlier this month offered an overall update on New Orleans schools that seemed benign enough: A slight increase in overall student performance meant another C grade for the district. But a closer look reveals a startling fact.

INVESTIGATIVE: Despite Denka's promised chloroprene reduction, data show levels far above federal...

Nearly a year and a half ago, the chemical company Denka Performance Elastomer made a landmark announcement: It had agreed with state regulators to cut emissions of chloroprene - a government-designated "likely carcinogen" that's been spewing from its plant in St. John the Baptist Parish for decades - by 85 percent.

DEADLINE/BREAKING: Thousands of students, staff quarantined as coronavirus rises in New Orleans...

Carter Davis showed up for football practice the Monday of Thanksgiving week to prepare for Lakeshore High School's first-round playoff game against DeRidder. Instead, the coach told the sophomore lineman to go home. He had been "contact traced," and would have to quarantine for 10 days away from the Mandeville school and Titans football squad to prevent any further spread of coronavirus.

AUDIO: New Orleans: Ready Or Not?

How prepared is New Orleans for the challenges that climate change will bring in coming years - heat, bigger storms and heavier rain? WWNO and The Lens explore this question with a special series, New Orleans: Ready Or Not? Support for the Coastal Desk comes from the Walton Family Foundation, the Greater New Orleans Foundation and the Foundation for Louisiana.

DISASTER REPORTING: Hurricane Zeta leaves 77% of New Orleans without power - and 200 'tree...

Darkness fell Wednesday on New Orleans long before Hurricane Zeta finished shaking trees and houses, leaving uncertainty for the 77% of the city waiting for the lights to come back on. A few powerless customers might be waiting as long as 10 days. Entergy reported 158,920 customers without electricity in New Orleans and 178,700 in Jefferson Parish.

SERIES: The State of Women, Part One

New Orleans news and entertainment

SERIES: The State of Women, Part Two

New Orleans news and entertainment

PRODUCTION: This is what Louisiana stands to lose in the next 50 years

The USGS says sea-level rise and sinking could claim up to 4,677 square miles of land along the coast if the state doesn't implement major restoration plans.

PROFILE: Exterminator Glenn Gueho actually is in the business of saving honeybees

They call him "Mr. Bee," "The Bee Guy" and, sweetly, "The Honey Man." For decades, Glenn Gueho has been southeast Louisiana's go-to exterminator when it comes to bees. Every year, he gets roughly 2,000 calls from city agencies and homeowners asking him to rid skyscrapers, public parks and private homes of the pesky insects.

Mississippi's lost babies

Like many whose babies have died in Mississippi, Howard had a medical condition before she got pregnant. She has long had a hyperactive thyroid, she said, but wasn't aware of the potential effects on in utero development until recently. She said she had prenatal care but her doctors didn't explain the risks of her condition on pregnancy.

In Louisiana's River Parishes, another possible cancer-causing agent in the air, EPA says

Just three years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared that St. John the Baptist Parish had the highest cancer risk from airborne pollutants of any similar jurisdiction nationwide because of the "likely carcinogen" chloroprene, resulting in controversy and a federal lawsuit aimed at a local chemical plant.

New Orleans area parents feel isolated from schools in pandemic: 'We just can't participate'

This time of year, the social calendar would typically be filling up for Stephen Peychaud, a Metairie Academy for Advanced Studies parent who dedicates his spare time to slinging doughnuts at Dad's Club events and helps plan the school's annual gala and neighborhood Carnival parade.

New Orleans public defenders to judge: Stop assigning us new cases

NEW ORLEANS - It was early October, and Alvin Parker was on suicide watch at Orleans Parish Prison. He had been there for weeks, unable to make bail or see his overworked lawyer. The 28-year-old schizophrenic had recently relapsed.

For La. moms, Paul Ryan's poverty plan could make a bad situation worse

NEW ORLEANS - Deandrea Frank had long dreamed of becoming a nurse. Even when she was living in a local homeless shelter after Hurricane Katrina, it was a promise that she repeated to herself. In late September, the single mom of three took her first step toward that goal, enrolling in classes to get her GED.

In New Orleans, public housing crunch forces thousands into limbo

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana - When Stephanie Mingo talks about the St. Bernard Projects, the area in New Orleans' 7th Ward where she was born and raised, her voice gets tight. Her frustration is audible as she struggles to hold back tears and contain the anger that has been bubbling for nearly a decade.

Could children go hungry this summer from coronavirus? Food banks worry, schools' plans unclear

As coronaviru s has decimated the economy, school districts in the New Orleans area have scrambled to help their most vulnerable populations: the children who might not get enough to eat every day in normal circumstances, let alone during a pandemic.

What's a 'pandemic pod?' The new education craze pops up in New Orleans as schools start remotely

When New Orleans public school mom Louise Fenton thinks about the end of the school year last spring, the anxiety comes flooding back. It was a crisis for Fenton, a 45-year-old single mother of two, when schools closed doors and went to virtual learning because of the coronavirus pandemic.

'Community learning hubs' pop up to help kids with distance learning, but challenges persist

Wearing blue and pink headphones, 6-year-old Teo Sloan pressed his nose up to a rose-gold iPad and giggled inside a makeshift classroom at the Broadmoor-based Rosenwald Recreation Center. Nearby, other children scribbled in notebooks and watched their teachers on screens.

A school year like no other: A peek inside New Orleans public schools in the era of coronavirus

Playground equipment sat untouched as first graders at KIPP East Community Primary rose from plexiglass-protected desks and danced in place for their "wiggle break." Across town, when the 10 a.m. bell rang last week at Eleanor McMain Secondary School, teachers, not students, rotated from room to room.

As confidence grows among parents, private high schools in New Orleans area push full-time classes

When St. Mary's Dominican High School's 870 students started class on a hybrid model in August, Anne Raymond wondered how it would work for her daughter, junior Julia Fluellen. Rather than going through the normal high school experience, Julia would be in a a few days a week, spending the other days logging onto online lessons from home.

How Louisiana colleges are prepping for a 2nd pandemic semester: No spring break, shortened...

Colleges in Louisiana are preparing for a second full semester of adjustments to the coronavirus pandemic, with many cancelling spring breaks and shuffling start dates to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks on campus.

Denka says EPA estimates for chloroprene risk in St. John the Baptist Parish are too high; agency...

A chemical manufacturer in LaPlace that has come under fire in recent years for releasing concerning levels of chloroprene into the air has accused the Environmental Protection Agency of using faulty science when estimating safety limits for exposure.

Elected officials in Louisiana drag feet on new EPA report as news of chemical exposure trickles...

It's been 15 years since Marcia Llewellyn left Norco, a community located next to an industrial complex long known for its distinctive odor, and a place that many residents said had become too polluted to live in.

Denka plant falls short on mandated cut to chloroprene emissions

More than a year after the St. John Parish-based Denka Performance Elastomer plant was expected to make an 85 percent cut in its emissions of chloroprene - a government-designated "likely carcinogen" - the chemical company still hadn't met that mandate, state regulatory officials report.

Louisiana AG Jeff Landry signs off on filing lawsuit against Denka plant in LaPlace

State Attorney General Jeff Landry has approved a request from state environmental regulators to file suit against Denka Performance Elastomer, a chemical plant in LaPlace that has come under fire in recent years for the amount of chloroprene that it spews into the air.

Denka says it met mandated reduction in chemical emissions, but methodology questioned

More than two years after Denka Performance Elastomer agreed to cut chloroprene emissions from its St. John the Baptist Parish plant by an eye-popping 85%, it says it has finally achieved the state mandate to slash pollution of the controversial chemical, a government-designated "likely carcinogen."

Activists find high cancer rates among residents near Denka plant; scientists question methodology

A long-awaited report released Wednesday by the University Network for Human Rights, a nonprofit founded last year by Stanford University law clinic instructors, found some Reserve residents had cancer at "extremely improbable rates," and pointed to the controversial Denka neoprene plant next door as the likely cause.

State wants source of new lethal injection drugs to be kept secret from public | The Lens

Less than two weeks after a federal judge allowed a Louisiana death-row inmate to find out more information about new drugs the state wants to use to kill him, the state has asked that some of that information be kept secret from the public. On Feb.

Louisiana execution method calls for same drug used in botched Oklahoma execution | The Lens

Tuesday night, an inmate in Oklahoma reportedly writhed on a gurney after being declared unconscious. Louisiana's execution method would use the same sedative, but in a much lower dosage. Death-penalty opponents say such a low dosage may not prevent suffering.

State failed to turn over key public records about execution drugs | The Lens

The Lens tried unsuccessfully for a year to determine when the state's lethal-injection drugs were due to expire, but prison officials repeatedly said they had no public records that showed such a date. Recently acquired documents show the state in fact had emails, letters and other records that reveal that information and more.

In rush to find lethal injection drug, prison officials turned to a hospital | The Lens

The state refused to say where it got a lethal injection drug just days before a scheduled execution in February. Now sources tell The Lens that it came from Lake Charles Memorial Hospital. "Had we known of the real use," said a member of the board of directors, "we never would have done it."

Executions in Louisiana on hold until at least January 2018 | The Lens

A trial on the legality of the death penalty in Louisiana has been delayed again as the state tries to determine its execution method. Wednesday, a federal judge delayed for 18 months proceedings on the constitutionality of Louisiana's death penalty procedures, as well as the execution of convicted child-killer Christopher Sepulvado.

U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to review Angola prison inmate's death sentence

The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't weigh in often on whether convictions should be overturned because prosecutors failed to turn over evidence - four times in the past two decades. Three of those cases came from Louisiana. Each time, the high court chastised prosecutors for violating the rights of defendants and the state's courts for letting the problem slide.