‘225’: What the closing of Earl K. Long hospital means to B.R.

Dr. Ronaldo Funes was a young man when he went to work at Earl K. Long Medical Center as associate chief of pediatrics in 1969. As Amy Alexander writes in a new 225 feature, Funes was filled with idealism, leavened by awareness of medical realities. In that era it was still common for childhood to be marked by disease: Osteomyelitis ate at the bone. Measles left scars in its wake. Chicken pox was the bane of almost every kid’s existence. “Medicine is an art and a science, and you have to combine them both,” Funes says. “We did that well at Earl K. Long.” Funes left Earl K. Long in 1975 to practice medicine on his own, and earlier this year he retired. Earl K. Long, the once proud LSU community hospital he helped build, died shortly afterward. In April, hundreds of medical professionals and support staff who clocked in and cared deeply about the facility that served many of the area’s poor either went to find jobs at other hospitals in the region or stayed home wondering what they would do next. Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Woman’s Hospital absorbed Earl K. Long’s education programs. Read the full story on what the closure of Earl K. Long means to Baton Rouge.