Eastern New Orleans hospital gets initial bond approval for second ...

Baton Rouge -? New Orleans got preliminary approval on Thursday to issue almost $98 million in bonds to replace Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital on Read Boulevard with a new, 80-bed facility. But though the plan continued toward final approval without opposition from Louisiana?s Bond Commission, state Treasurer John Kennedy continued to question whether the hospital was necessary and how its construction would impact other facilities in the New Orleans area.

The approval is the second time in less than a month that the panel has given a tentative green light to the project. City officials had to come back this month because the project has secured a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which clears the way for a lower interest rate.

Thursday?s discussion closely mirrored the previous hearing on the topic. The primary debate centered on whether the hospital was necessary to provide services to a relatively isolated population or if it would drain patients from other health care centers, potentially requiring the state to come in and provide additional funding.

New Orleans Health Commissioner Karen DeSalvo, who also sits on the board of the hospital, argued that it is necessary because the area is physically separated from the rest of the city by the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal.

?There are 130,000 people in the service area, the vast majority of whom live within the confines of that geographic isolation,? DeSalvo said.

When the new hospital opens at 5620 Read Blvd. there will be about 300 fewer beds in the area than there were before Methodist Hospital was damaged during Hurricane Katrina. Since then, there has not been a New Orleans hospital east of the Industrial Canal and providing a health care center to the residents who live in the area, which? was a major campaign promise of Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

But Kennedy noted that New Orleans already has more hospital beds than the national average and will be getting another 424 beds when the University Medical Center in Mid-City is completed. The St. Bernard Parish Hospital opened in Chalmette in September, adding an additional 40 beds to the area.

?Why do we need more beds and who's going to be the loser here among the hospitals that exist in New Orleans,? Kennedy said. ?Who's going to go out of business??

DeSalvo and others connected to the hospital said that the eastern New Orleans facility would work with those other providers, offering services that were unavailable in Chalmette while sending patients to the University Medical Center for other procedures. Estimates from the consultants working on the project suggest that the hospital will only take a minimal number of patients from the Chalmette facility.

?This will provide in-patient needs and outpatient services to a community that?s evolving,? DeSalvo said.

That issue is further complicated by the state?s refusal to implement the expanded Medicaid program that is part of the Affordable Care Act. The business plans for both the University Medical Center and eastern New Orleans hospital had taken an increase in patients covered by Medicaid as a given. That expansion could come alongside a decrease in the amount of money from the federal government to cover uninsured patients.

DeSalvo said there are back-up plans for how to deal with the lack of additional Medicaid patients, though she described the situation as ?particularly challenging for the entire state.?

When Kennedy asked how DeSalvo would fix the problem were she in charge, she spoke generally about the need to reform health care, focusing on efforts to provide health care and expand primary care in New Orleans after Katrina.

?If we don?t start to really consider how to restructure the delivery of care and also pay for that delivery of care, we?re in a pickle,? she said.

Kennedy promised the issue would come up again when the project came back for final approval.

Sen. Ed Murray said recent public hospital cuts would likely drive patients from all over the state to health care centers in New Orleans. Murray also argued that any discussion of the overall picture of public healthcare in the state required bringing in officials from the Department of Health and Hospitals and LSU, which runs the state?s hospital system.

As for the new hospital, Murray, who represents part of the area, said that many residents are homeowners with insurance, negating some concerns about paying for uninsured patients.

?I think the model they have in place will work,? Murray said.

Source: http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2012/10/eastern_new_orleans_hospital_g_1.html

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