The creator of a new Facebook page set up to "save UMC of Lafayette jobs" has a story that's not unlike the countless other patients who receive treatment every year at various UMC clinics, several of which are in danger of shuttering due to mid-year budget cuts from the state.
The mother of a 5-year-old boy, the new Facebook page's administrator tells the social networking world that her son is receiving treatments at UMC for "severe speech and sensory issues ... and he's making progress."
"But if treatment is halted now, it will totally jeopardize his future!! It is imperative to keep these units open and going!!!" proclaims the unidentified mother, whose "Save UMC of Lafayette Jobs" page is up to 55 fans as of Thursday morning.
News of impending layoffs reached the more than 900 UMC employees last week, when the LSU Health System announced that it will be forced slash $29 million from its budget.
The cuts will impact seven charity hospitals statewide and could mean the loss of 80-100 employees at UMC as well as the hospital's obstetricians, neonatal ICU unit, ophthalmology department and ENT services.
UMC's Pediatric Clinic was also on the chopping block, but hospital administrator Larry Dorsey says he is hopeful that the 6,000 children seen every year through pediatrics can be shifted to the family medicine department to avoid completely cutting critical services to children.
Other departments, like the ENT clinic, could be completely eliminated, raising profound concerns from the unit's resident medical students and nurses who say that the high number of late-stage cancer and tumor patients seen at the clinic "will literally die because they have no where else to go."
The Facebook page encourages its fans to contact area lawmakers and take other steps to save UMC's clinics.
Click here for a brief overview on the potential cuts at UMC.
For more in-depth coverage on what the UMC cuts will mean for Acadiana, check out The Ind's Feb. 1 edition.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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