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Regular Session, 2010 ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 104
BY SENATORS MCPHERSON, LONG, RI SER AND SMITH
A RESOLUTION
To express support for consolidation of inpatient and outpatient services at Huey P. Long
Medical Center to create a sustainable and economically feasible model, and to urge
and request the governor, the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors and
the secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals to take all actions necessary
to streamline services and create a fiscally responsible, viable public medical center
in central Louisiana capable of continuing its integral role in health workforce
training and delivery of high quality direct patient care.
WHEREAS, the Huey P. Long Medical Center provides important services vital to
the health of many residents living in central Louisiana as well as serving as a referral
facility; and
WHEREAS, the Huey P. Long Medical Center has a long and distinguished history
as an excellent training facility for many medical residents, nurses and allied health
professionals preparing them eventually to practice in the underserved rural parishes of
central Louisiana; and
WHEREAS, the Huey P. Long Medical Center includes a sixty bed acute care
hospital that had two thousand three hundred thirteen adult and pediatric admissions, four
hundred fifty-four psychiatric admissions and thirty six thousand five hundred sixty-four
emergency department encounters as well as an extensive array of outpatient primary care
and specialty clinics that delivered eighty-seven thousand one hundred sixty-one thousand
outpatient encounters in 2009; and
WHEREAS, the Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville has an estimated
economic impact of $135 million annually and employs five hundred twenty-eight full time
equivalent positions; and
WHEREAS, the Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville has continuously SR NO. 104 ENROLLED
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provided quality medical care to the indigent and uninsured populations of the nine-parish
region covering central Louisiana since 1939, when the original hospital structure was
opened, and continues to serve vital patient care functions more than seventy years later; and
WHEREAS, inpatient services for the Huey P. Long Medical Center are provided
at the facility located at 352 Hospital Boulevard, Pineville, while the vast majority of
outpatient services are now provided at a separate facility located at England Airpark at 2351
Vandenburg Drive, Alexandria; and
WHEREAS, the condition of the Huey P. Long Medical Center located at 352
Hospital Boulevard, Pineville has been determined to be inadequate for long term operation
of hospital services; and
WHEREAS, the facility that LSU leases located at 2351 Vandenburg Drive,
Alexandria from the England Economic and Industrial Development District is a former
military hospital and has been maintained in good physical condition; and
WHEREAS, funding for construction of a replacement hospital for Huey P. Long
Medical Center was first contemplated in the state's capital outlay construction bill in 2001
without subsequent progress toward construction; and
WHEREAS, current state debt limits, coupled with the state's multi-year economic
outlook, restrict the ability of the state to fund the construction of a new hospital; and
WHEREAS, the governor and public policy organizations encourage local solutions
tailored to local health care challenges; and
WHEREAS, the England Economic and Industrial Development District was
statutorily created as a political division of the state encompassing the territory of Rapides
Parish, enabling it to accept title from the United States of America to the property included
in the England Air Force Base and utilizing that and other property, and all assistance
available from the federal government and all other sources, to replace and enhance the
economic benefits generated by the former air base with diversified activities, including
health care; and
WHEREAS, the England Economic and Industrial Development District desires to
renovate the building currently leased by LSU for clinic purposes as appropriate to create
a full service in-patient hospital that will replace the outdated Huey P. Long Medical Center SR NO. 104 ENROLLED
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in Pineville as well as to renovate a building across the street from the hospital to serve LSU
outpatient services needs; and
WHEREAS, by consolidation into one location and renovation, the England Airpark
hospital would allow LSU to offer patients private and semi-private rooms instead of three
to five bed wards, thereby enhancing patient confidentiality and privacy and improving
patient access to care with all services on one campus; and
WHEREAS, eliminating duplicate departments resulting in staff reductions,
improving bed utilization, reducing maintenance expenditures that continue to increase in
an antiquated building, and eliminating cost of maintaining two campuses would provide the
revenue stream necessary for LSU to make lease payments for the proposed facilities; and
WHEREAS, LSU could improve efficiencies and patient safety by eliminating staff
time lost in commuting between two campuses, improving patient flow within the facility,
improving environmental controls and improving security; and
WHEREAS, consolidating services at the England Airpark would improve LSU's
ability to recruit and retain needed physicians and other related staff in a medically
underserved region and provide a modern facility to meet the stringent requirements for
medical education; and
WHEREAS, locating the Huey P. Long Hospital at the England Airpark would
complement the state's emergency response capability by having a facility that can provide
medical surge needs for statewide evacuees by locating near an airstrip capable of landing
C-130 military transport planes and in close proximity to the new statewide Critical
Transportation Need and Medical Special Needs Shelter.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
does hereby express support for consolidation of inpatient and outpatient services at Huey
P. Long Medical Center to create a sustainable and economically feasible model, and to urge
and request the governor, the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors and the
secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals, to take all actions necessary to
streamline services and create a fiscally responsible, viable public medical center in central
Louisiana capable of continuing its integral role in health workforce training and delivery
of high quality direct patient care. SR NO. 104 ENROLLED
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BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
governor, the secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals, and the chairman of the
Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE