Don Smithburg Quotations

Some of them are on the brink of unable to cope any longer.

Our morgue at Big Charity is full and it is under water.

Our heroic staff cannot keep going much longer. We can't get our people out fast enough.

We don't have that luxury, if you will.

We need funding to partially restore New Orleans.

We are highly skeptical that you can bring in 2006 systems and attach them to 1938 systems and make it all work, when so much has changed technologically.

Today represents really an historic joining of two public health systems.

What we're trying to avoid is having to move more than once.

We're doing everything that we can to secure the buildings. We know that these buildings are sieves ... They have easy access.

Both of our main hospital buildings at Charity and University Hospitals are uninhabitable for health-care purposes. We don't believe it will ever be inhabitable again. We are forced to leave those buildings and start with a new footprint.

We are going to get this project out on the street.

The hospitals that are operating are filled to the brim. The emergency departments are clogged up with long queues that see a growing patient population.

It's such a great area, in terms of accessibility, people know where it is, ambulances can get there, so we want to preserve that geography.

The last information I have is that all of the buildings are empty.