NEW ORLEANS Mental health professionals say this city appears to be experiencing a sharp increase in suicides in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and interviews and statistics suggest that the rate is now double or more the national and local averages.
At least seven people have killed themselves in the four months since the storm, officials say, here in a city whose population is now no more than 75,000 to 100,000. That compares with a national rate of 11 suicides per 100,000 for all of 2002, and a rate in New Orleans of about 9 per 100,000 for all of 2004. There is broad agreement that the problem is likely to get worse.
Stevenson Palfi, 53, a well-known local filmmaker, was apparently the latest to take his own life. Palfi's house in the Mid-City section had taken 8 feet of water, and he was in despair over losing years of files and photographs, a computer - in fact, all the contents of his office. [Read more - Herald Tribune]
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