[StBernard] #47 Hospital insurance

[Westley Annis]

The money went to the corporation and they chose not to rebuild.  They have
no obligation to reopen and no none of that money can be used without UHS
returning.  I think we got a little ahead of ourselves when we told the
third largest, and in my opinion clearly the best managed, hospital chain in
the US they would never be welcome back.  Surely some things could have been
handled better by UHS but obviously some things could have been handled
better by government on all levels as well.   The closest you may see to UHS
returning is there has been some talk of the company running Methodist
hospital as a community owned hospital for the city of New Orleans.   If the
hospital wasn't the largest employer in the parish it had to be close, to
fully recover we need to replace that but it's a slow process.  The hospital
can't return without a population, to serve and the community needs the
hospital and the jobs it brings to have the population return.  
 
There are certainly people who haven't returned because we don't have a
hospital for health reasons and many who have not returned because there
health care jobs are gone.  Someone said Pearl River doesn't have a hospital
and people moved there so not having a hospital in the parish is not why
people haven't returned.  That is a flawed theory.  Not everyone moved to
Pearl River.  I know a lot of nurses that moved away and I can't think of
any that moved to Pearl River.  I am sure there must be some but I can't
think of any at the moment.  We sorely need a hospital for many reason and
we need one that will attract specialty doctors.  We need good paying jobs
in the parish.
 
Randy


> -----------------------------------------------------

> Can some of this money be used to build the new hospital? If not, where

did

> the money go?