BATON ROUGE, La. – Gov. Bobby Jindal says in January, the state will be in Washington for the final round of arbitration in the battle to get more money from FEMA for the damage done to Charity Hospital.
The money is a huge factor in getting a new teaching hospital built in New Orleans, but as Jindal said in a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News Anchor Eric Paulsen, it is not the determining factor in getting the new hospital up and running.
For the first time Jindal has confirmed that attorneys, the Louisiana Recovery Authority and other state officials will be in Washington on Jan. 11 giving the states case as to why Louisiana should get more money from FEMA for the damage done to Charity Hospital from the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.
The governor has said no matter what amount the feds come back with, the new teaching hospital will be built here in New Orleans by the new VA hospital in the Tulane Gravier area, which many now call lower Mid-City.
But he adds the $150 million they are offering now is unfair, and he expects a lot more.
“I’m optimistic because the facts are on our side,” Jindal said. “There have been multiple independent studies that show the damage exceeds 50 percent. We all know that for $150 million, they can’t rebuild this hospital. I’m confident this is an independent arbitration process. What we’ve said to folks at LSU is, we’ve got to get a final decision on this. We’ve got to move forward on this.”
The governor said if the number is below his expectations, the Obama administration has assured him there will be other funding avenues to make this project work.
The other point he said is critical is location. The governor has said no matter what, Charity will not be the site of the teaching hospital.
“Let’s remind people, because I think this debate gets so focused on the building. What this is really about is a first-class, safety-net provider of health-care services. A first-class, trained facility for medical residents and future doctors. A first-class research facility to bring in outside dollars for economic development and to create new cures for diseases that are important to our people, to this region, to this state.
“Well, this is about us being a first-class delivery center of specialized services that you’re not going to be able to get in other places.”
That, for Jindal, means a new state of the art building on the property the state is acquiring next to the new VA Hospital. The governor said Charity will be saved – money has already been set aside to restore it – it just won't be renovated as the new teaching hospital.
“Let’s remind folks, this is not about a building. This is about more than just one building, one hospital. This is about a catalyst for a bio-medical center that I think will be the most important part of redeveloping New Orleans economic future.
“We’ve got the port. We’ve got the energy center. We’ve got tourism. We’ve got the hospitality industry,” Jindal said. “But we need, if we want to make sure that New Orleans continues to be one of America’s leading cities, we absolutely have to have an economic driver that a bio-medical system will provide to us. This is bigger than LSU and a hospital. This is about bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of cutting edge medical research into this city.”
Right now, Jindal said, the entire state of Louisiana does only $100 million in healthcare research. Houston alone does more than $400 million, and it’s those dollars Jindal said need to be coming to this state and the New Orleans metro area.
And he believes the bio-medical corridor can do that.
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