The New Orleans Musicians Clinic

The New Orleans Musicians' Clinic (NOMC) was founded in 1998 to provide access to comprehensive preventive health care and wellness education to a segment of New Orleans' community of working but medically uninsured: the City's 3200 professional musicians and their families. The health crisis facing America's 47 million medically uninsured working Americans is obvious. However, in New Orleans, the plight of our musical cultural heritage is threatened by the absence of adequate preventive health care, early diagnosis and wellness education. The question we ask ourselves is this: It is not IF we can afford to care for Louisiana's cultural icons, it is whether we can afford NOT to care.

Prior to 1998, Johann Bultman, co-founder and Chair of the NOMC, operated the House of Bultman and regularly donated funeral services to jazz musicians who were unable to finance their own services. However, Bultman became frustrated that many of the world renown musicians passing through his doors had succumbed to preventable or treatable diseases. His wife, Bethany Ewald Bultman, a cultural anthropologist and journalist, serves as the NOMC Chair for Outreach. Ms. Bultman discovered the sad fact that writing about fundraising events to scrounge up enough to pay for cancer treatment for a musician was a painful example of too little too late. This issue was the catalyst for the development of the NOMC.

The traditional health care system in Louisiana is in disarray. A combination of factors conspires to deny adequate health care to our working but medically indigent. At the heart of the problem is the fact that Louisiana's gross per capita income is among the five lowest in the U.S. at a little over $33,000 per year ($4000 below the Federal Poverty Level). On July 26, 2005, the Federal Kids Count stated that the child poverty rate in Louisiana soared 11% between 2000 and 2003, as many as half the State's children live below the Federal Poverty Level and a third are trapped in outright destitution. Medical insurance for adults and parents is not an option under these household financial circumstances.

Further, the 2002 Louisiana Health Report Card ranks Louisiana at or near the bottom in a wide array of health indicators including preventable infectious diseases, cancer and preventable chronic diseases. For example, Louisiana suffers from the highest incidence of diabetes in the country (almost double the national average), as well as the greatest incidence of overweight and obesity (both intimately tied to low income and nutritional behavior). A tragic 33% of New Orleans' children between the ages of 6 and 14 are obese (primarily within low income families). One out of six New Orleanians has been diagnosed with diabetes and the 2002 Report Card estimates that only half the actual number of cases have been diagnosed. Diabetes claims three lives per day in New Orleans.

In addition, the 2002 Louisiana Health Report Card states that the current ethic of treating patients after they become ill is economically untenable and it recommends the adoption of a new paradigm: preventive health care and wellness education. 85% of all health expenditures in this country traditionally occur in the last 24 months of a patient's life. The NOMC has been in the vanguard of this new early diagnosis and preventive approach to health care since 1998.

The working, but medically indigent, professional musicians of New Orleans form the basis for this City's world-wide reputation as a cultural Mecca, the birthplace of jazz, blues and rock n' roll. The economy of our tourist-based industry is built on the backs of our artists. Our professional musicians form the heart of our community's cultural heritage and quality of life. Yet, the vast majority of the NOMC's musician-patients earn less than $20,000 per year. Medical insurance (Blue Cross / Blue Shield limited coverage is approximately $9000 for a family of four). Medical care, and medical prescriptions are not an option for musicians or their families under these circumstances.

The NOMC is committed to the belief that our cultural icons are entitled to adequate comprehensive health care, preventive health care and wellness education. These artists deserve more than to be lumped into the State's system for indigent health care which frequently exacerbates patients' illnesses by the unconscionably long delays in receiving appointments within the system.

In 2004, the NOMC processed 2387 total patient encounters, of which 178 were new patients. The NOMC saw 32 new dental patients in 2004 and had 638 total patient encounters. The NOMC filled 1352 prescriptions in 2004.

The NOMC enlists its patients as advocates for preventive health care and wellness education to the community, taking advantage of the celebrity status of our City's artists. Through broadcast media, festivals and other public events, the NOMC engages these artists asambassadors to our community to educate New Orleanians about the critical need for preventive health care and early diagnosis. In this way, the NOMC's mission is publicized to the families and to the next generation of our community.

The mission of the NOMC is to Keep the Music Alive. Our goal is to improve the healthcare available to our community. By providing prevention, wellness and health education to our 1000 plus musician patients and their families we not only are enriching our culture, we are changing the health outcomes of musicians, their families and their audience.

Hurricane Katrina Update

The catastrophic destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina has forced the relocation of the NOMC to the offices of our sister clinic located in Lafayette, Louisiana. The NOMC quickly set up its regular medical services through partner health care providers in Lafayette and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The vast majority of New Orleans musicians have evacuated the City and the NOMC is working to locate all patients, restore their medical records, and provide normal services. The NOMC is expanding its mission to work toward providing housing and meeting other essential needs of our artists, including providing instruments lost to the storm.