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NEW ORLEANS ASKS FOR MORE MONEY AND LESS RED
TAPE AS VA IS SLOW TO REBUILD -- "I keep
hearing the
reasons why we are not moving forward. What you
first
need to do is go back and lock the goddamn
attorneys
in a room and start talking to each other."
For more on the New Orleans VA situation, use the VA Watchdog search
engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch
.php?q=new+orleans&op=ph&strt=20
Story here...
http://www.axcessnews.
com/index.php/articles/show/id/11848
Story below:
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New Orleans asks for more money, less red tape
to restore health care services
By Garesia La'Shay Randle
(AXcess News) Washington - Lack of money has slowed the progress of
restoring New Orleans' health care system. But members of Congress also
pointed their fingers at federal agencies' reluctance to cut red tape
that would speed progress.
At a hearing Wednesday, members of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee expressed discontent that health care agencies and residents
are still waiting for relief almost two years since the natural
disaster.
"Their wait should not be made harder by unnecessary delays and backroom
politics," said the committee chairman, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich.
Mortality rates in New Orleans have increased an average of 47 percent
since the disaster.
Hospitals say they aren't being paid enough for all the care they give
to uninsured patients who came to them after the Veterans Affairs
Medical Center and Charity Hospital closed.
Critics said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the
Louisiana Redesign Collaborative and the State Department of Health and
Hospitals' efforts to offset the devastation of the closings are not
working.
Five city hospitals said they expect a combined loss of $135 million in
2007 that will grow to $405 million by 2009 if they do not receive the
resources to make up for the loss of the two hospitals.
Secretary of Human and Health Services Michael Leavitt recently made
$100 million available to restore and expand primary care in the city,
with $4 million specifically for the City of New Orleans Health
Department.
But New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin said in an interview that "the
government is not built for speed" and he believes the money will take
time - time the city cannot afford - to get in the hands of the health
care agencies and residents.
"We are suffering, ladies and gentlemen," Nagin told the committee,
"from financial malnutrition. And we need an acute infusion of resources
into our environment to help us overcome this incredible challenge. ...
We have had 23 or 24 months of going through this dance for money to
flow from the federal government to the state government and get stuck."
Nagin said is "getting pretty weary" of coming before Congress to
address "some of the same things over and over."
Federal money meant to compensate hospitals for caring for patients who
can't pay is distributed equally across 31 parishes and 65 hospitals in
Louisiana, hospital administrators said, even though New Orleans
hospitals are struggling and other hospitals are profitable.
Hospitals affiliated with Louisiana State University and Tulane
University say they are underpaid for training doctors. The federal
government said it did not have the authority to increase payments.
Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., the committee's vice chair, said the
bureaucracies need to fix the problem.
"I keep hearing the reasons why we are not moving forward. What you
first need to do is go back and lock the goddamn attorneys in a room and
start talking to each other," Melacon said.
Another controversy is over where to build a combined LSU and VA
hospital.
Nagin said the downtown location near Tulane's hospital, which has the
support of local officials and advocacy groups, is ideal because of its
convenience and the potential to create at least 20,000 jobs.
But the VA is studying a second location in another parish.
Robert L. Neary, the VA's executive-in-charge of the office of
construction and facilities, said it will at least take four months,
less than the usual six to eight months, to do research on the two sites
to comply with environmental law.
Stupak said that is wasting time and money.
Nagin said putting the VA Medical Center in another parish could create
a domino effect, causing Tulane to pull out of the area and "decimate
the medical district."
Witnesses also said it is urgent to replace medical professionals and
specialists. The city's health department lost more than 60 percent of
its staff after Katrina.
The Louisiana Board of Nursing reported a 27 percent decrease in the
number of nurses renewing their license as of July 2006.
Source: Scripps Howard Foundation Wire
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Larry Scott --
