Three of the five “indispensable” clinics slated to close at Lafayette’s only charity hospital are safe for now.
State Rep. Stephen Ortego announces in a press release Monday night that University Medical Center’s orthopedics, ophthalmology and ear, nose and throat clinics will remain open. Pediatrics, which provides preventative and specialty medicine to more than 6,000 children a year, will be moved under the umbrella of family medicine, Ortego says, and all patients who will be affected by the program cuts will receive a letter detailing where they can go for health care services. A hotline will also be set up for patients.
All public hospitals within the LSU Health System are eliminating labor and delivery, which also means the elimination of neonatal intensive care units.
LSU Health System was hit with $29 million in mid-year budget cuts handed down from the state Department of Health and Hospitals. As The Ind reported recently in “The Bitterest Pill,” initial reports on the potential impact to UMC employees and patients were grim. Widespread layoffs were predicted, and the residency program, which trains 71 future doctors a year, was at risk of serious negative impacts.
“In the short-term we are trying to insure the continuation of our residency programs for medical students and provide care that cannot be found in private hospitals.” Ortego says. “In the long-term we want to build on the system to insure preventative care for the region in satellite clinics and expand the LSU medical school to Acadiana.”
But Ortego also notes that the status of the hospital programs will likely be raised again in coming months as lawmakers look to fill a nearly $1.6 billion shortfall for the 2012 fiscal year.
The Lafayette legislative delegation, according to a release from Ortego’s office, is also looking at other funding channels for local health care, including a mix of local money to boost federal matches and pushing for more “regional control” of UMC.
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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