Two days before new Inspector General David McClintock is
set to release a report on Jefferson Parish’s public hospital lease issue and before
a scheduled council vote to pick a “winner” on Thursday, both Jefferson Parish
Councilmen-At-Large, Chris Roberts and Elton Lagasse, have sided with Children’s
Hospital.
Roberts also announced that the Council vote would be
postponed.
Monday, both hospital boards remained deadlocked with East
Jefferson General Hospital officials favoring HCA while West Jefferson Medical
Center board members favored Children’s Hospital. Originally, the Jefferson
Parish Council had stated that it preferred to have one entity lease both
public hospitals.
The joint hospital
board has 20 members. Children’s received 11 votes with one member absent and
another abstaining.
In a written statement, Roberts and Lagasse discussed the
rationale for their decision.
"LCMC (Louisiana Children’s Medical Center) is a local institution
that understands the importance of making decisions based on what it right for
the patient," they wrote. "They are a non-profit entity that does not
answer to investors rather the community in which they serve."
What’s curious about Roberts and Lagasse is their decision
to disagree with Sheriff Newell Normand, an ardent supporter of HCA, the only
public, for profit entity seeking the hospitals.
Children’s absorbed the operations of the Louisiana Interim
Public Hospital and Clinics in New Orleans in June from the State.
Before ascending to the At-Large positions, Roberts
represented a West Bank District while Lagasse represented a split East
Bank/West Bank District.
The Ben Zahn – Ochsner Connection
Continuing to push behind the scenes for an Ochsner victory,
despite no support from either hospital board, is District 4 Councilman Ben
Zahn. Zahn, whose district includes the Kenner Campus for Ochsner, has pushed
for more time.
According to the Times-Picayune, “Zahn, citing ‘turmoil,
confusion, conflicting information,’ said he wanted more time to ‘sort through
what is and isn't fact’.”
Zahn’s ties to Ochsner or his reasoning for continuing the
futile push, have not been explained.
Months before Zahn entered the race for Jefferson Parish
Council, and while still a member of the Kenner Council, a billboard was erected
near the heavily-trafficked intersection of Williams Blvd. and West Esplanade
in Kenner. The billboard was for the Ochsner Kenner Hospital, approximately 2.5
miles west of the intersection.
What was curious about the billboard was the fact that it featured
a smiling Ben Zahn along with his family promoting Ochsner. Despite complaints,
and the fact that no one in the Zahn family had any prior modeling experience,
the billboard stayed up throughout Zahn’s Jefferson Parish Council campaign, effectively
providing him free advertising. Neither Ochsner or Zahn's campaign ever disclosed a value for this in-kind donation of free advertising.
In addition, the head of Ochsner’s Kenner Campus was a
campaign supporter and contributor to Zahn.
Was this simply coincidence, quid pro quo for Zahn’s support
of a Cooperative Endeavor Agreement that Zahn authored while on the Kenner City
Council allowing another Ochsner Clinic to post a sign on a publicly-owned
median, or part of a larger process to secure Zahn’s support for Ochsner in the
hospital lease process?
As we now know and verified by Councilman Roberts and
Sheriff Normand, the proposed lease of Jefferson Parish’s most valuable public assets has been a process that has been years in the making. Although just made
public earlier this year when the Sheriff and the Council persuaded theJefferson Parish Legislative Delegation, led by State Rep. Joe Lopinto (R-Metairie) and State Senator Danny Martiny (R-Kenner), to change a decades
old law that removed the right of the people of Jefferson to vote on the future
of health care, this ruse upon the public has taken twists and turns.
While it pains me to no end to agree with Zahn that we all
need to “sort through what is and isn’t fact”, unfortunately, when it comes to
the Jefferson Parish Council, Zahn included, and Sheriff Normand, the people of Jefferson Parish continue to come out on the short end when it comes to elected
officials telling the truth and actually representing the best interests of
Jefferson Parish residents.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the proposed lease of our two public hospitals.
