While Mayor Kip Holden blasted the Metro Council for even considering to pass a non-binding resolution encouraging three local hospitals to sign a patient transfer agreement with Champion Medical Center—saying the council was setting a bad precedent of meddling in private business affairs—a number of the candidates who want to replace Holden are applauding the council’s action. At least one candidate says it was unnecessary.
The resolution encourages Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Baton Rouge General Medical Center and Ochsner Medical Center-Baton Rouge to work with Champion as it seeks to transform its Harding Boulevard medical offices into an emergency room with accompanying doctors’ offices.
The proposed ER is unfunded and the company has said it would need as much as $6.5 million from the state to renovate the facility and operate it for the first year. It will need another roughly $3.5 million annually for the next few years for operations before the facility would theoretically becoming self-sustaining.
Proponents of the resolution—which passed by an 8-4 vote—say this is needed because the law only allows patients to stay at Champion for 96 hours, and some would need extended care past that deadline.
Democratic mayoral candidate and former state legislator Sharon Weston Broome says in a statement she believes the resolution is “a step in the right direction” that begins the conversations about enabling health care access for north Baton Rouge residents.
“Although there is ‘no one size fit all’ solution, undoubtedly we all recognize that there is a dire health care shortage in north Baton Rouge,” she says in the statement, adding that she will work toward a sustainable model of health care, including an emergency room with primary and clinical care facilities. Broome represented parts of the north Baton Rouge area in the Legislature for more than two decades.
One of Broome’s opponents, Republican state Sen. Bodi White, also says he believes the resolution is a smart move.
“It’s wise to start working together with local and state officials, hospital leaders and members of the north Baton Rouge community to develop a thoroughly vetted and financially sustainable plan to provide care in areas with limited access,” White says in a statement.
He points to a bill he authored, Senate Bill 475, that would create a pilot program in the parish for alternative transport methods for non-life threatening emergency calls. White believes the program would reduce wait times and provide more accurate care in the health care facilities.
The bill, which has passed both the House and Senate, would allow paramedics to transport non-life threatening patients to medical offices other than an emergency room.
Another candidate, real estate broker and investor Darryl Gissel, says the resolution is an indicator of a broken political system.
“It’s just another issue of politicians pandering to an audience as opposed to reaching a decision that’s going to be sustainable,” says Gissel, who is running as an independent.
Republican candidate and Metro Councilman John Delgado, who sponsored the resolution and voted for it, says he doesn’t think the council is wading too far into personal business because the resolution is non-binding and only encourages the companies form a partnership.
Attempts to reach two other candidates, Democrats Byron Sharper and Greg LaFleur, for comment were unsuccessful as of this morning’s deadline.
—Ryan Broussard
