NEW ORLEANS — First came the storm. Then came the workers. Now comes the baby boom.
In the latest twist to the demographic transformation of New Orleans since it was swamped by Hurricane Katrina last year, hundreds of babies are being born to Latino immigrant workers, both legal and illegal, who flocked to the city to toil on its reconstruction.
The throng of babies gurgling in the handful of operational maternity wards here has come as a big surprise — and a financial strain — to this historically black and white city, which before the hurricane had only a small Latino community and virtually no experience of illegal immigration.
“Of all the myriad things that have changed after Katrina, this wasn’t high on anybody’s priority list,” said Dr. Mark Peters, chief executive of East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie.
Because many immigrant mothers cannot afford to pay for prenatal care or delivery services, New Orleans’s newest citizens are adding an unexpected load to the decimated health infrastructure in a city abandoned by many of its doctors. Much of the state-financed Charity Hospital system, which before Hurricane Katrina provided the bulk of care to New Orleans’s uninsured and indigent population, remains closed.
Lacking health insurance and barred from most government assistance, expectant immigrant mothers can go to only the handful of charitable clinics that are still operating and that do not question a woman’s immigration status when offering low-cost prenatal care.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/us/nationalspecial/11babies.html
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