[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish Hospital moving along, job fair this weekend

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish Hospital moving along, job fair this weekend

Published: Tuesday, May 08, 2012, 5:08 PM     Updated: Tuesday, May 08,
2012, 5:09 PM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

Still about three months from completion and at least four months until it
opens for patients, the St. Bernard Parish Hospital will host a job fair
Saturday in Chalmette that will also give the public an opportunity to meet
the leadership already in place. The $92 million public hospital sits on a
23-acre tract between West Judge Perez Drive and St. Bernard Highway that
was donated by the Arlene and Joseph Meraux Foundation, the private entity
created to oversee charitable spending fueled by the Meraux fortune.

The job fair will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Sigur
Center, 8245 W. Judge Perez Drive. So far, the hospital has hired about 20
employees, according to Wayne Landry, chairman of the parish Hospital
Service District Board.

Available jobs run the gamut - from nurses and pharmacy staff to
electricians, housekeepers and accountants.

Located at 8000 West Judge Perez Drive, the hospital touts itself as about 5
miles from downtown New Orleans and pitches "a competitive benefit package
and salary to innovative, energetic applicants."

Additional information and online applications are available at
www.sbph.net/openjobs.html, by emailing a letter of introduction and resume
to careers at sbph.net, or by mailing or hand delivering applications to the
hospital's administrative offices at Careers at St. Bernard Parish Hospital,
8400 West Judge Perez Drive., Suite D, Chalmette, LA 70043.

Additionally, people can call the hospital's human resources director,
Tracie Gravolet, at 826.9400 or email her at tracie.gravolet at sbph.net.

The Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System will operate the
public hospital. The parish health clinic it used to run in Arabi is now in
the hands of the St. Charles Community Health Center. Tim Burke is the
hospital's chief executive officer.

The 113,000-square-foot hospital will have 40 in-patient beds, including 28
general medical or surgical beds, 8 intensive care beds and 4 long-term care
beds. There also will be four operating suites and two endoscopy suites,
along with an additional 10 beds in the emergency room. The
60,000-square-foot, three-story medical office building next to the hospital
eventually will consist of doctors' office.

The hospital will have 24-hour emergency services; an in and out-patient
laboratory; general, orthopedic, oral, ENT, and same-day surgical services;
cardiac care; an endoscopy center; internal medicine; diabetes management;
rehabilitation services; social work services; and various diagnostic
imaging, including MRIs and 64-slice CT scans.

Additional information on the hospital is available at the St. Bernard
Parish Hospital and the St. Bernard Parish Hospital Service District
websites -- http://www.sbph.net/and http://www.stbphsd.org/.

The money for the hospital and medical office buildings includes $46 million
in federal Community Development Block Grants, $10 million in new market tax
credits, $17 million in state capital outlay money and $1.3 million from a
federal Health Resources and Services Administration grant. In November
2010, parish voters approved a 10-year, 8-mill tax to cover the hospital's
startup operating costs, ranging from salaries to basic supplies to
recruitment of specialists.

Revenue from the millage, an estimated $2.3 million annually, will be bonded
out to yield $16 million to keep the hospital afloat during the first three
years of its operation. The remainder of that millage revenue paid the
interest of borrowing that money up front.

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