State backs new Charity plan

• By ALLEN JOHNSON JR.
• Advocate New Orleans bureau
• Published: Jun 19, 2008 - Page: 13A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration on Wednesday announced support for a reworked, $1.2 billion plan to replace Charity Hospital at New Orleans with a 424-bed teaching hospital that is also designed to provide a $2.5 billion economic stimulus for the hurricane-scarred city.

“This is the biggest news we have had since Hurricane Katrina,” New Orleans City Council President Jackie Clarkson said.

Alan Levine, secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said the new deal for the LSU/Veterans Administration hospital — which calls for 60 fewer beds than a proposal crafted on former Gov. Katheen Blanco’s watch — will be presented to the Legislature today.

“I think you are probably a year away from moving dirt,” Levine said. He hinted that construction would take another three to four years.

Asked what will become of old Charity Hospital, which has been closed since Katrina struck in 2005, Levine demurred: “That’s a bit above my pay grade.”

Jindal was in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, seeking $170 million in federal monies for noncharity hospitals in the New Orleans area that have absorbed the city’s indigent patients since Charity closed.

Old Charity served 63 percent of the region’s uninsured patients. Under the Blanco plan, the proposed hospital would have covered 83 percent of the uninsured. The new Jindal proposal will serve 70 percent of the uninsured, Levine said.

However, the Jindal administration’s proposal for the LSU/VA hospital faces an array of hurdles: a federal “historical review” of how the plan would impact the gritty, but historic Mid-City neighborhood; complex land acquisition processes, and a grilling by legislators, the state Bond Commission and potential financiers on Wall Street.

In New Orleans, sharp questioning persists from activists seeking to reopen Charity Hospital as well as preservationists and residents of the shotgun-style homes and cottages, who would be largely displaced by the hospital expansion.

“What are we doing to do in the meantime?” said health care activist Brad Ott, a member of a state advisory panel set up during the Blanco administration. “Why do we have to take out a whole neighborhood for a project that is going to take years — when we need health care now?”

Ott is urging the state not to give up on Charity, noting that an independent study on whether the facility can safely reopen will be released in August.
Walter Gallas, local director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, says the proposed hospital could destroy scores of architecturally significant homes and landmarks eligible for protection under the National Register of Historic Places.

“Where we are concerned is where this thing is located,” Gallas said. “We don’t like the fact that most of the proposed site is within the boundaries of the Mid-City historic district. There are intact blocks of houses that residents have returned to since the storm and renovated. It is primarily double-shotgun houses.

“We also believe there are alternative sites within the city of New Orleans that have not been appropriately discussed,” Gallas said.