Less than 18 hours after the Metro Council Zoning Committee deferred the creation of a health district in south Baton Rouge because of racially charged accusations that the city is ignoring the health care needs of the poor in north Baton Rouge, more than 500 business leaders and health care professionals gathered for the groundbreaking of Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital today. The hospital is a $230 million, state-of-the art facility OLOL CEO Scott Wester described as “one of the cornerstones” of the health district.
The timing could not have been more ironic. Dozens of residents packed the Metro Council chambers Wednesday evening to oppose the creation of the health district—which is merely a zoning designation and does not dedicate any funding—until the city addresses access-to-care issues in north Baton Rouge.
Mayor Kip Holden, on hand for today’s groundbreaking, says designating a health district in the south and access to care in the north are unrelated issues. He blasted the organizers of Wednesday night’s opposition for orchestrating a campaign of misinformation.
“A lot of the facts that some of the people against the health district are using are erroneous, and they are feeding upon a fear-mongering type attitude,” Holden says. “If you’re going to take a position, at least get the facts correct. Don’t feed people with false information.”
Holden says designating the existing medical corridor as an official health district anchored by projects like the new Children’s Hospital will benefit the entire community, and it doesn’t preclude the creation of a new clinic or hospital in north Baton Rouge. The 350,000-square-foot Children’s Hospital, which is scheduled to open in summer 2018, is expected to attract pediatric specialists and medical residents to the area, thereby improving access to health care for the entire region.
“We have world class talent here and the opportunity to attract more,” the mayor says. “For someone to be an obstructionist is beyond comprehension.”
After a two-hour hearing Wednesday night, the council voted to defer the creation of the health district for three months. Metro Councilman John Delgado, who also attended the groundbreaking today, says he hopes opponents of the health district will come to recognize that creating the district in the southern part of the parish and creating a new health care facility in the northern part are not mutually exclusive.
“One is a zoning designation for an already-existing corridor of hospitals, which will allow them to better integrate and work better together. The other is a completely new project we would have to undertake,” Delgado says. “It’s not whether we should do one or the other. We should do both.”
Wester, the Lake CEO, says officially designating the medical corridor as a health district is more about branding and sending a message to the outside world that Baton Rouge has a wealth of health care resources for everybody.
“The whole premise of the health district is to recognize the health care assets we have in the community,” Wester says. “A lot of people believe it’s a boundary type issue, too, but it’s really a recognition of all the things we do.”
See renderings of the Our Lady Of The Lake Children’s Hospital.
—Stephanie Riegel
