Mayor Nagin said that Governor Bobby Jindal is leaning towards building a smaller teaching hospital in downtown New Orleans, one smaller than hospital officials recommend.

New Orleans leaders said that building a new Charity Hospital is a top priority; it’s one of the issues Mayor Nagin and the city council brought up with Gov. Jindal when they met in Baton Rouge.

WWL-TV

The old Charity Hospital

“The governor was absolutely confident and adamant that the new Charity Hospital needed to be built in New Orleans,” said Mayor Nagin. “He [the governor] was still not comfortable that the LSU projections -- which were for 480 beds -- is what the community needed at this point in time and maybe they would look to build something smaller, about 200 beds smaller.

The old Charity Hospital had 550 beds before Hurricane Katrina shuttered the hospital. 

LSU Vice-President of Health Affairs Fred Cerise said that medical consultants told him that 484 beds is the right number for the new hospital.

“In order to have a facility large enough to accommodate the uninsured and some reasonable mix of insured business as well, that would be the appropriate size,” Cerise said.

But some lawmakers are getting tired of waiting for the state to make the decision.

“It just bothers me to no end that the twin span is almost finished and we haven’t started anything on the hospital,” said Rep. Cedrick Ricmond, D-New Orleans. “If you can build a bridge between New Orleans and Slidell, you can surely build a building, a hospital.”

Mayor Nagin said that he would support a smaller hospital if the state agrees to expand it when patients need more beds.

“I'm okay with them getting started. I would be absolutely fine if they started to build the 270 bed hospital, 280 bed hospital right now because it looks as though we have the VA Hospital ready to move, so I would like to see those projects move in tandem,” said Mayor Nagin.

The governor's office is just now completing a study to determine the size of the new Charity Hospital. That study is expected to be handed over to state lawmakers in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, some former Charity patients are suing to force the state to reopen at least the bottom three floors of the old hospital.