Editor’s note: This letter is in response to Austin Casey’s June 22 column about the proposed University Medical Center.
Mr. Casey,
I agree that New Orleans needs a teaching hospital system, and we need it now. We need economic growth. We need young talent.
We do not need the planned University Medical Center.
Expanding our existing facilities or renovating Charity Hospital will have the same effect in less time and without the exorbitant cost.
The RMJM Hillier Study for the Reuse of Charity Hospital proved that plans for the UMC could be recreated within the shell of the gutted Charity Hospital. The plan prepared by Sen. Vitter, Speaker Tucker and Treasurer Kennedy is more feasible, as well.
Neither plan would require the state to borrow $400 million to fund the $1.2 billion UMC, nor would they cost taxpayers $125 million per year in operating costs. And both could be completed in less time.
I know what you’re thinking though, “But it won’t be shiny and new!”
You’re right. “Impressiveness” should be a top priority for our struggling state. I personally think a government that made sound economic decisions would be pretty “impressive.”
Rarely is a patient concerned about the impressiveness of the building, but rather the quality of the care. I should hope that as a future doctor you would have the same concern.
Although, I see how shininess could have played a role in your career choice as well.
You seem downright giddy about the “whopping 424 beds” the UMC will boast, yet you also claim that the Interim LSU Public Hospital only fills its 225 beds to 90 percent capacity. I’m curious as to how this indicates that we need a hospital with double the bed space. An independent study done by Kaufmann Hall, a nationally recognized firm of health care experts, agrees that the proposed UMC is too big, too expensive and too unnecessary.
Maybe we can rent out the empty rooms to help pay the exorbitant cost of building the facility.
And do you really think all that shiny newness will be enough to attract “bright minds?” You say yourself that the LSU Medical Center did not rank on any of the U.S. News “Best Medical School” lists this year.
I find it hard to believe that facilities were the main culprit in this slight. Maybe what the state needs is better leadership, not more empty hospital beds.
So use your “bright mind” and think about the feasibility and necessity of building this new facility. We can’t afford it now. We can’t afford it in the future. And we don’t need it.
Emmy Gill
LSU Alumna
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