Space for emergency treatment is tripled
A new emergency department designed to handle anything from broken fingers to multiple casualties from industrial accidents will go on line at St. Charles Parish Hospital next month. But on Friday, parish and hospital officials celebrated the completion of the building at the main hospital in Luling, which must be certified by the state Department of Health and Hospitals before it can open.
View full sizePeople gather for the grand opening of the new emergency room at St. Charles Parish Hospital in Luling on Friday.
At 12,000 square feet, the new emergency department is three times the size of the current department and is designed to move patients quickly through the system.
The improvements cost $4 million, including equipment, and are being paid for with property taxes dedicated to the 53-year-old publicly owned hospital.
"We identified a need, we made a plan, and we saw it through to fruition," Parish President V.J. St. Pierre Jr. said.
Federico Martinez, CEO of the hospital, said a series of completed and planned improvements to the parish's health-care system are designed to bring more parish residents into the system, which draws about 70 percent of its in-parish patients from the west bank.
"Most of the people on the east bank are getting their health care somewhere else, and we want to change that," he said.
View full sizePeople tour the new emergency room at St. Charles Parish Hospital during a grand opening ceremony Friday. To that end, the hospital helped found the St. Charles Parish Community Health Center, which has completed the construction of a clinic in Norco, which offers primary-care services in the area as well as industrial medicine designed to serve the oil refineries and chemical plants. The clinic has scheduled its grand opening for later this month.
Voters recently approved a plan to open a primary-care and after-hours clinic in Destrehan, expected to be located near the Hale Boggs Bridge,
On the west bank, a group has opened a privately owned urgent-care clinic in Luling, but Martinez said he doesn't feel threatened by the competition, saying the hospital is discussing the possibility of having the owners of the facility operate the new urgent-care center.
"We know the owners very well," he said.
The bond issue approved by parish voters in April allows the hospital to expand its services to perform emergency cardiac care to patients such as placing stents.
In 2008, parish voters approved the hospital's plan to use the tax to build a new patient-care wing.
The hospital remains affiliated with the Ochsner Health System network, although Ochsner dropped immediate plans to buy the hospital outright.
However, the hospital maintains an affiliation with the parish hospital, where it has two physicians on staff, allows the hospital to use its purchasing network to buy supplies, and has its specialists direct the treatment of stroke patients via a video link from Ochsner's main campus, Martinez said.
Matt Scallan can be reached at mscallan@timespicayune.com or 985.652.0953.