Families Lose Loved Ones Again -- in a Bureaucratic Mire

"I wish I could speed up the process," Cataldie said. "But speeding up the process could contaminate the process, and I just can't do that. And I'm sorry we have to do that in some situations to make sure the entire process is as pure as it can be. I have to be able to stand up before somebody and say I am absolutely sure."

Bob Johannssen, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said part of the problem might be that families haven't been told to call the National Find Family Call Center (1-866-326-9393). He said the center would relay information between families and the morgue.

Several families said their frantic calls to FEMA and state officials were taken by people who were either indifferent or unable to provide any information. And even those whose loved ones' remains have been officially identified and cleared for release said it still took weeks to get the bodies.

Joanne Mason Sealy said her family spent three weeks trying to locate the body of her 88-year-old father, Arthur Mason, a patient at a New Orleans nursing home who died in the first chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina. The frail Alzheimer's patient died after he was evacuated to the New Orleans airport four days after the storm.

And even though Mason wore two medical ID bracelets, it was not until three weeks later that his body was identified and released, Sealy said.

"The heartbreak of the whole thing is indescribable," she said.

Connie White said she spent weeks not knowing whether her aunt, Ella Jones, a nursing home patient in New Orleans, was dead or alive. It was only when her family reached a nursing home worker that they were told Jones, 81, had died of "natural causes" after the hurricane. Her body, with her ID wristband, was sent to St. Gabriel but was not identified and released until last week, White said.

"I have a lot of questions that somebody is going to have to answer," White said. "I want to know if my aunt really died of 'natural causes.' "

Jones and Mason were patients at Bethany Home, a nursing facility on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans. Sealy and White said family members of both patients offered to stay with their loved ones before the storm but were told that the facility had an evacuation plan and that the patients would be well cared for.

Officials at Bethany, which has shut down, could not be located for comment.