[StBernard] Planned hospital is healthy news for St. Bernard Parish: Bob Warren

[Westley Annis]

Planned hospital is healthy news for St. Bernard Parish: Bob Warren
Published: Sunday, July 18, 2010, 7:00 AM 
 Bob Warren, The Times-Picayune 
 
If anybody in the metro area is entitled to a little good news, certainly
it's the people of St. Bernard Parish, beat up as they've been by Hurricane
Katrina nearly five years ago and now the BP oil disaster that has
moth-balled the commercial fishing fleet and understandably put many
residents into a deep funk.

So it was with no small amount of fanfare Friday that a host of elected and
appointed leaders gathered in Chalmette to break ground for a new public
hospital, moving the parish another step closer to having full-service
medical care for the first time since Katrina swamped the area's levees and
destroyed just about everything in St. Bernard Parish, including Chalmette
Medical Center.

It's been a long time coming, and that the ground-breaking was held just one
day after BP seemed to finally be doing something right in stopping the flow
of crude oil from its damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico was a fact not
missed by those in attendance.

"This is a monumental day for us,'' St. Bernard Parish President Craig
Taffaro Jr. said.
After numerous fits and starts, officials say the new hospital could be open
by January 2012 on a plot of land off St. Bernard Highway near the Chalmette
Battlefield.

But having a hospital won't be cheap, and although parish officials say they
largely have the money in hand, $69 million, to cover construction of the
hospital and an associated medical office, St. Bernard Parish residents can
expect to be asked in the fall if they'll pony up to help cover start-up
operational costs.

The board that oversees the hospital agreed last week to ask the St. Bernard
Parish Council to place an 8-mill property tax on the ballot Nov. 2. The
money generated by the tax's 10-year lifespan would pay down a $16 million
loan that will be used to cover salaries and other hospital expenses.

Hospital board members said the tax would go a long way in convincing
private investors that the hospital will have enough money to be operated
once it's opened. That might be key: The construction money is in the bag,
save for some $10 million expected to come from private investors through a
federal tax credit program.

Hospital Board Chairman Wayne Landry told the large crowd on hand for the
ground-breaking that the hospital will be built debt free, that construction
won't cost the parish any money. But, he said, operational costs are another
story.

"We as a community need to make sure that this hospital becomes
successful,'' Landry said, urging hospital supporters to become
"ambassadors'' for the millage and hospital project.

Beginning the campaign to get the tax passed, Landry, who is also chairman
of the Parish Council, said he and other hospital supporters would go house
to house to persuade voters if necessary.

Judging from a quick polling of several of the Parish Council members at
Friday's ceremony, it looks as though the council will agree to place the
millage on the ballot.
"It's healthcare -- it's what everybody has been talking about since the
hurricane,'' Councilman Kenny Henderson said, adding that he didn't see any
problems with the council "putting it on the ballot'' and letting residents
vote.

Would such a tax find a lot of support from St. Bernard Parish voters? 

Henderson seemed to think so. Healthcare, after all, is central to most
conversations about the parish's recovery from the terrible mess of Katrina.

Rare is the elected official in St. Bernard Parish who can't relate a story
about an expatriot living on the northshore or somewhere else lamenting that
they cannot return to the parish because the nearest hospital care is a long
drive across the Industrial Canal into New Orleans.

Longtime Sheriff Jack Stephens on Friday related the story of his mother,
who is 82 years old and a native of Shell Beach. Since Katrina she has lived
north of Covington but tells her son every chance she gets that she's ready
to move home and would be fine if she never sees "another pine tree.''

But, he said, "She's in need of healthcare.'' And the biggest obstacle to
her returning to her beloved St. Bernard Parish, Stephens said, is the lack
of a full-service hospital.
"Nothing's more important in our recovery,'' he said, "than getting the
hospital up and running.'' 

Bob Warren is chief of the paper's St. Bernard bureau. He can be reached at
bwarren at timespicayune.com or 504.826.3363.