UMC balancing cuts

Officials to slice services to meet budget

LAFAYETTE — University Medical Center officials are working to “re-engineer” operations to offset the forthcoming cuts at LSU hospitals and their clinics and the loss of about 80 local employees, hospital administrators said.

The changes will take effect March 4 and are part of $4.2 million in budget cuts for UMC approved by the LSU Health Care Services Division Board of Supervisors on Feb. 3 as part of LSU’s efforts to cut $29 million to $34 million so it can end the fiscal year with a balanced budget.

HCSD, which oversees the hospitals, also has submitted for state civil service approval an employee layoff plan, which affects about 645 positions.

At UMC, the cuts translated to the closures of labor and delivery services, its newborn nursery and neonatal intensive care unit, the pediatric clinic, pediatric inpatient services, the KidMed Louisiana Medicaid preventative pediatric health program, its transplant clinic, coumadin clinic, disease management clinic and its detox unit.

Larry Dorsey, a hospital administrator at UMC, said plans are under way for the hospital’s continued departments to absorb patients affected by the closures.

The hospital’s family medicine clinic will pick up the pediatric clinic patients, and patients whose chronic illnesses were managed in the disease management clinic will be transferred to either the family medicine or internal medicine clinic, Dorsey said.

The hospital is negotiating with private providers for pediatric inpatient services and obstetrics and newborn care, he said.

Transplant patients will now be referred to the hospital’s general surgery clinic. The hospital is also closing its detox unit, however, Dorsey said UMC will still provide medical detox services and help place patients in a treatment center.

Dorsey said administrators have been working to minimize the impact on patients.

“It’s going to take us some time to re-engineer the operations of the hospital to make it as efficient as possible,” he said. “So, maybe initially there may be some waiting times and delays. … I don’t want to paint a rosy picture that there’s going to be no problem at all. There are problems but we’re trying to mitigate them as best we can.”

The plan is not reassuring to parents like Linda Reddoch, whose 5-year-old son receives speech and occupational therapy at UMC. While her son’s therapy will continue, Reddoch said she is concerned about the impacts of a “skeletal crew.”

“We need everything restored, every employee, every department. We can’t do without them,” Reddoch said.

Reddoch has initiated an awareness campaign and created a “Save UMC Of Lafayette Jobs” page on Facebook. Through Facebook, Reddoch is organizing a rally at the State Capitol this spring, she said.

“Panic is a great motivator,” Reddoch said about why she decided to organize a campaign. “I cannot sleep at night. I’m not only worried about my own son.”

As part of the awareness effort, Reddoch is asking patients to send their personal stories and photos to Gov. Bobby Jindal.

“We need everybody who can to flood Gov. Jindal’s office with their stories and their photos … so he could put a face to this,” Reddoch said.

The hope is that the photos and personal stories will “pull the strings of his heart so he can have mercy and get the hospital back to where it was,” she said.

Monday, state Sen. Fred Mills said that although the budget cuts were approved, discussions continue on how to address the community’s concerns.

“We’re continuing to have meetings with Louisiana Health and Hospitals, UMC and the Governor’s Office to talk about how to mitigate the cuts,” said Mills, R-New Iberia.

The changes will not affect the hospital’s residency programs in geriatrics, internal medicine and family medicine, Dorsey said.

A partnership with a local hospital will ensure UMC continues to offer its family medicine residents their required training in obstetrics and labor and delivery, Dorsey said.

UMC will also add a prenatal clinic to its family medicine clinic services to enable residents to provide patient care and follow expectant mothers to a private hospital for delivery, he said.

The hospital’s budget reduction plan initially eliminated residency programs that enabled New Orleans-based residents to make rotations in UMC’s ear, nose and throat; opthamology; general surgery; and gynecology departments, Dorsey said.

“Originally, we had some of the rotating residency programs that would not come to UMC any longer, but in order to protect the programs from any possible accreditation issues, we reworked the plan and took them off. They wouldn’t have closed the program; they would have gone to another area of the state,” Dorsey said.