Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center is aiming to open a 24/7 emergency room at the hospital’s LSU Health North Urgent Care Center on Airline Highway in north Baton Rouge within the next 12 months.
The planned ER will have eight treatment rooms capable of flexing up to 11 treatment spaces and will be staffed with around-the-clock emergency physicians. The site also will have a full-service lab and a pharmacy, the hospital says. Physicians will be able to perform CT scans and X-rays onsite.
OLOL officials say they plan to add 8,000 square feet to the current urgent care center at 5429 Airline Highway to house the planned ER. The urgent care center will still operate at the location.
Hospital officials released details about the planned north Baton Rouge emergency room, which will be an extension of OLOL’s main campus, during a news conference held at the urgent care center earlier today.
Gov. John Bel Edwards also was on hand to speak.
“As the son of a retired emergency room nurse, I know how critical it is for a community to have access to immediate care,” Edwards says in a statement sent after the news conference. “While this mission has been a priority for me and many other local officials, it’s the voices of the people in this community that should be credited the most for making this day happen.”
Daily Report was the first to break the news about the agreement between the state and OLOL to establish the ER, which will provide emergency care to an area that has cried out for it ever since Earl K. Long charity hospital closed in 2013 and Baton Rouge General’s Mid City emergency room was shuttered in 2015.
The state will fund $5.5 million toward the new ER’s development. The deal is part of a larger contract between the state and OLOL, which is the state’s partner hospital to provide charity care in the Baton Rouge market.
The memorandum of understanding signed by Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, LSU President F. King Alexander, Our Lady of the Lake CEO Scott Wester and Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Rebekah Gee makes the agreement official.
