Government policy only payslip service to idea of social capital

THE past two weeks since hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans have been described as the two weeks that shamed America.

We all saw for ourselves how everyone who could get out of harm’s way got out. And they left behind the poor, the old people and people with disabilities.

Since the disaster, I’ve been wondering what happened to public patients in the psychiatric hospitals in the region or to people with intellectual disabilities in residential centres. Did anyone come for them? Were they protected from the terror they must have felt, kept warm and dry, fed and nourished? Were they seen as anyone’s priority?