Having seen little to no progress made on the state of health care in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison over the last six months, Metro Councilwoman Chauna Banks-Daniel says it’s time to remove Prison Medical Services from under the city-parish Emergency Medical Services umbrella.
At Banks-Daniel’s request, interim EMS Administrator Chad Guillot and Rintha Simpson, the interim head of Prison Medical Services, presented a six-month report to the council at Wednesday’s meeting. The report comes six months after nurses and workers in the prison told the council mismanagement and lack of support from EMS is hurting their ability to care for the suspects and prisoners in the Parish Prison. The prison sits in Banks-Daniel’s district.
Banks-Daniel says she is disheartened to see nothing has changed in six months.
“The issues with Parish Prison have nothing to do with money, it has to do with its leadership,” Banks-Daniel says.
The councilwoman says she will request a meeting with Mayor Kip Holden and his administration to see if there is a way to give the prison medical staff autonomy to do what they need. She slammed Guillot for the low morale among the workers and not supporting the prison staff.
“Yes we need a new prison, but what is the point of putting lipstick on a pig,” Banks-Daniel says. “It’s a management issue.”
She is not sure how successful she will be in her quest.
Councilwoman Donna Collins-Lewis says she feels the issue could be fixed with the construction of a new Parish Prison that will have better, more adequate medical facilities, and not present health hazards to the suspects, inmates and workers.
When she visited the prison a few weeks ago, Collins-Lewis says the sewage backed up into the women’s facilities and was told that is not an uncommon occurrence.
“We need a new prison, it’s inhumane,” Collins-Lewis says. “I’m not asking for a luxury hotel, just a decent place.”
In other action at Wednesday’s meeting, the council, in less than two minutes, quickly approved two contracts for the East Baton Rouge Parish Library System that will allow library system officials to move forward with demolishing the current River Center branch and building a new $19 million facility downtown. The council deferred the items four weeks ago amid concerns about the monthly rent the library system will pay to establish a temporary downtown branch in the Kress Building.
The system will lease space in the Kress Building at 447 Third St. for more than $14,500 a month for 30 months, and will also spend $161,000 on a contract to move items to the Kress Building. Some items will also be moved into storage and others to the Outreach Services Collection at 3434 North Blvd.
The vote for the lease agreement passed 7-3, with John Delgado, Ryan Heck and Buddy Amoroso voting against the item, and Trae Welch and Scott Wilson absent. Amoroso, who is flatly against destroying a standing building to construct a new library, was the lone opposing vote for the moving contract.
The council also approved appropriating $460,000 in programming fees for phase two of the council chambers renovation, and approved two measures that will raise revenue to pay for debt service at the Baton Rouge Metro Airport. The measures will increase facility-use fees and parking fees.
Airport Director Anthony Marino told the council officials want to raise the parking fees because the parking garage needs repairs after more than 20 years in use, and the revenue from the parking fee increase would go toward reducing the debt to repair the garage. The airport is taking on $5 million in debt to repair the garage and the debt will be repaid over 21 years. Rates to park in the garage are going up to $12 per day, up from $10, while rates for the lot are increasing to $9 per day, from $7.
—Ryan Broussard
