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...
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.
Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaks in 2005 combined to destroy the lone hospital in St. Bernard Parish, Chalmette Medical Center, leaving the parish without an emergency room or full-service hospital.
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@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@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.