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By Bethany Bultman, co-founding director and chair of the New Orleans Musician Assistance Foundation, August 28, 2015
August 26, 2005 was a typical lazy end of summer Friday afternoon at the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic (NOMC). At 4 pm our office administrator locked the file cabinets containing the health records of our 837 active patients, turned out the lights, and rode the elevator down seven flights to street level. It would be the last time any of our staff would enter that office.
Since the musician’s clinic was founded on May 1, 1998, our mission has been to sustain New Orleans’ musicians in mind, body, and spirit. Our musicians are the backbone of New Orleans’ number one industry: tourism. The NOMC proudly serves a culture which was bent by slavery, poverty, disease, and flood and who responded un-broken with the USA’s only indigenous art form, Jazz. Our health care team serves members of brass bands who overcame the violent deaths of some of their members to be nominated for a Grammy, and yet in 2015 continue to live in such poverty that they must rent their horns. We treat iconic Mardi Gras Indians who still live in homes that lack a roof 10 years after the floods of Katrina.
Read Bethany Bultman’s complete article at Next City
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By Campbell Robertson New York Times April 23, 2015
NEW ORLEANS — No one goes to a bar here, particularly one that advertises its hours as “2 p.m. till,” and expects precision about the time of day. But it was right on the stroke of midnight that Frankie Mazzanti, 56, one of the owners of the low-ceilinged neighborhood joint called 45 Tchoup, went along the bar picking up ashtrays and tossing them in a plastic bag.
“All right guys, put ’em out,” he said. “Sorry, it’s over.”
Just after midnight Tuesday, it became illegal to smoke in bars in New Orleans. Last call for cigarettes went out across the city: at the hazy Bud Rip’s bar in the Bywater; among the cigar-smoking crowd in the leopard print chairs at the French 75 bar in the French Quarter; at the Kingpin, where the bartenders handed out Nicorette gum; and at 45 Tchoup, where smoke had settled in so heavily that it began to form something like an Alpine cloud bank.
“This is one of the smokiest bars in town,” said Steve Zweibaum, 57, the owner of a jazz venue nearby who, while smoking a cigarette, spoke of how he had quit smoking long ago. “I know a bunch of people who don’t come in here because of the smoke,” he said, listing names. “Maybe they’ll come back.”
New Orleans is late to banning smoking in bars, but it is not the last US holdout.
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New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic Keeps the Music Alive
The crash of the cymbals. The blare of the trumpet. The beat of the drum. Music in New Orleans has elevated the culture into a signature style deeply rooted in history. But performing live can take its toll, and caring for the musicians has become a mission for the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic (NOMC). Since 1998, the NOMC has provided high-quality healthcare and wellness for over 2,500 players regardless of ability to pay. Watch how this nonprofit stays organized to keep performers “alive in body, mind and spirit” so they can continue their passion for great music.
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The City of New Orleans | March 18, 2015
What is New Orleans proposing?
The city of New Orleans is focused on increasing use of healthcare services by overcoming points of resistance through more effective public engagement.
New Orleans seeks to increase the number of people using healthcare services under a Medicaid waiver program. Engaging residents would help New Orleans better understand why people don’t use the program today and how the city could address those issues. The City Accelerator would help the city adapt leading approaches to this work.
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