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Jindal touts hospital deal

The Advocate
January 26, 2010
by Marsha Shuler

On the day of the governor’s news conference on a proposal to move LSU’s local medical education and hospital services to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, two lawmakers whose districts would be affected expressed reservations.

“I did not feel comfortable putting my stamp of approval on this when I had unanswered questions,” said state Senate President Pro Tempore Sharon Broome, a Democrat. She represents the north Baton Rouge district where the LSU programs are now located.

Broome said the proposal could be a “viable alternative” but she could not endorse the plan at this time.

“We believe there is a lot of information that needs to come,” said state Rep. Michael Jackson, No Party-Baton Rouge. “We want more answers.”

Broome and Jackson said the proposed partnership between LSU and the south Baton Rouge facility, known locally as the Lake, affects the lives of their constituents, and it is not a plan that should be rushed without community involvement.

At the news conference, Gov. Bobby Jindal praised the proposed public-private partnership as “historic” and one that would reap major health-care dividends for area and state residents.

“It brings the best of our public system together with an institution that’s already one of the largest providers of care for the poor,” Jindal said.

The Lake is the state’s largest private provider of Medicaid services — outside of women’s and children’s hospitals, state health officials said.

Six Republican Baton Rouge lawmakers and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, threw their support to the plan as did the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, the Greater Baton Rouge Area Foundation and Blueprint Louisiana.

The plan would result in the closure of LSU’s Earl K. Long Medical Center, on Airline Highway, sometime after 2013.

The hospital sits in Broome’s legislative district.

Broome called the plan “incomplete” because it fails to address who handles obstetrics and gynecological care. Prisoners at state penitentiaries also are treated at the Earl K. Long facility.

The Lake does not want to handle any of those services.

Broome and Jackson also questioned the financial feasibility of the proposal.

“How in the world can we write a blank check to the Lake and we are having all these budget problems?” Broome asked.

Jindal said the state will commit $38 million to the venture: $24 million already inserted in the state construction program and another $14 million that will be put in his proposed 2010-11 budget bill for increased Medicaid payments to the Lake.

The Lake has committed to spend at least $100 million on construction projects needed as LSU moves its medical education and inpatient care to the Lake’s campus off Essen Lane, said Scott Wester, president and chief executive officer of the Lake.

“We will probably double that over the next five years,” Wester said.

Jindal listed benefits to the partnership arrangement:

Provide the Baton Rouge area with a Level 1 Trauma Center, which is capable of handing the most critical care emergencies.
Add an urgent care center at LSU’s north Baton Rouge medical clinic to give greater access to care and “reduce unneeded emergency room visits.”
Expand services to the area’s poor — not currently available at the Earl K. Long hospital, including invasive cardiology, cardiovascular surgery and neurosurgery.
Improve opportunities for physicians-in-training and students because of higher patient volumes and a more varied mixture of medical cases to treat.
Save the state $400 million — the money that would have been required to build a new hospital.