Shalina Chatlani
Health Care Reporter, Gulf States NewsroomShalina Chatlani is the health care reporter for the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between NPR, WWNO in New Orleans, WBHM in Birmingham, Alabama and MPB-Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson.
Shalina is based out of WWNO in New Orleans and covers health care access and inequity. Before that she was a science reporter for KPBS in San Diego and the Emerging Voices Fellow at WPLN in Nashville. Some of her reporting has looked at racial disparities in the coronavirus vaccine rollout and how the financial stress of the coronavirus pandemic is affecting communities of color in San Diego.
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Black farmers and their families once owned and worked on thousands of acres of land in Louisiana’s Iberia Parish. The land has shrunk over the last several decades, and some, like Eddie Lewis III, say it stems from racist policies.
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Residents of LaPlace in Louisiana have stayed hurricane after hurricane due to their deep ties to their community. State and federal officials are trying to deal with the area's repeated devastation.
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In Mississippi, the last temporary 'parking lot' coronavirus field hospital closes on Sunday. It was set-up as the Delta variant whipped through the region.
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As a field hospital closes up shop in Mississippi this weekend, the state, along with Louisiana and Alabama, still has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country as the pandemic looks to be far from over.
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Nine people died from excessive heat in New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Ida, which knocked out power across the city for multiple days, according to Louisiana’s Department of Health.
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The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality is looking into more than three dozen complaints or reports of possible environmental damage from utilities and chemical plants across the state that were in the path of Hurricane Ida. Officials at the agency, however, said none of what has been reported so far requires immediate action.
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Several nursing homes across Louisiana are losing their licenses and senior living facilities in New Orleans are being shuttered because of deaths and unsafe or substandard living conditions during and after Hurricane Ida.
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In LaPlace, a man lost the home his family has lived in for generations, and a church that was a refuge for many immigrants is now destroyed.
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Some people say they stayed behind because they didn’t want to leave their belongings unguarded, or they felt they could ride out the storm. But many people didn't have a choice. They didn’t have the money, the gas, or family connections to get out of dodge.
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Those hospitals include St. Charles Parish Hospital, Our Lady of the Sea, St. Anne Hospital in Raceland and Chabert Medical Center in Houma, Terrebonne General Health System and Chabert Hospital, all healthcare facilities located near the coast in Louisiana, are moving their patients.