New Orleans - A subcommittee of the Commission on Streamlining Government is recommending that it is more efficient to build a new hospital inside the walls of old Charity.
"We testified that Charity could be re-used and the whole building gutted and everything torn out -- all the mold, all the asbestos, all the wires, the elevators and the plumbing -- would come out and a new state of the art hospital would be built inside the shell of charity," says Jack Davis with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He is one of those who testified in Baton Rouge about how to lower the cost of government and health care in Louisiana. He adds, "It would cost 283 million dollars less than building a new hospital and it would be done at least two years sooner."
State Treasurer John Kennedy explains, "There is a concern that we will be able to borrow the money to build a new hospital and if we can borrow the money, whether the money can be paid back."
A spokesperson for LSU Health Sciences Center tells FOX 8 "The decision to build a new hospital was made by the Jindal administration more than a year ago. LSU is confident it is the right decision and is moving forward."
Critics point out that building a new building is not a done deal, especially given the fragile economy and the changing landscape of health care reform. Jack Davis says a representative from PAR explained that with health care reform, "LSU can no longer count on getting federal reimbursements for uninsured patients as it does now. These payments are factored into the business plan that LSU has been relying on."
The recommendation now moves to the full commission.
