LSU hospital system plugs budget hole
As Chancellor of LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans Dr. Larry Hollier, left, and Chancellor of LSU Health Shreveport Dr. Robert Barish, at a Friday briefing to the LSU Board of Supervisors on where $29 million in budget cuts will be made.
More than 400 LSU hospital system employees in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and other areas across south Louisiana are facing job layoffs as LSU moves to close a $29 million budget hole, the hospitals’ chief executive said Friday.
LSU Health Care Services Division chief Roxane Townsend said 645 jobs will be affected with the planned closure of clinics, reductions in services and hospital patient capacity.
The division had about 7,200 employees as of Jan. 17, according to LSU.
LSU System Vice President Fred Cerise said efforts have been made to protect both patient care and medical education programs. Most of the cuts will be made at LSU hospitals and their outpatient clinics.
“I will not mislead you. There will be an impact on patients,” Cerise told the LSU Board of Supervisors as he outlined the plan. “We cannot avoid any negative impact.”
Cerise then laid out — hospital-by-hospital — closures of pediatric clinics, cuts in acute psychiatric services, elimination of obstetrics and neonatal intensive care as well as closure of a rural health clinic.
LSU Health Center New Orleans Chancellor Larry Hollier told the board the cuts are “tragic for our patients, tragic for our medical students and residents,” who are physicians in training.
The closure of medical clinics and reductions in patient capacity “are severely damaging to the (medical) training programs” that produce the state’s next generation of physicians, Hollier said.
Hollier said the cutbacks are prompting some who had chosen to do their physician training at LSU to now say they are not coming.
LSU is trying to find private sector hospitals that have the kind of patient volumes needed to adequately staff and train LSU medical students and residents, he said.
Cerise said the $780 million LSU hospital system’s budget has been cut by $100 million in the past three years and is down 458 employees from then. Cuts were particularly deep because the cuts are coming late in the fiscal year.
Townsend said she expects as many as 400 people could lose their jobs when the changes are implemented because vacancies have not been filled in recent months and some have found new jobs.
The largest cut occurs at Medical Center of Louisiana in New Orleans, $14.9 million with 240 positions; followed by Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge, $6.7 million with 148 positions; University Medical Center in Lafayette, $4.2 million with 107 positions; and Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center in Houma, $2.9 million with 80 positions at stake.
Other hospitals with lesser amounts include Bogalusa Medical Center, Lallie Kemp Medical Center in Independence, and W.O. Moss Medical Center in Lake Charles.
Cerise said work continues to try to get private and other public health-care providers to take over the patient care that LSU will no longer be able to provide.
That will come at a cost as the state Department of Health and Hospitals must pay private providers for the cost of patient care once provided through LSU’s public hospitals and clinics.
“We have offered our assistance for every region we could help,” DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein said in a late Friday afternoon interview. Of particular importance is making sure there is no reduction in mental health coverage in the New Orleans area where LSU plans bed closures, he said.
Greenstein said Medicaid eligible pediatric and obstetrics patients also have access to physicians through new private sector health plans offered through the Bayou Health program.
LSU’s Health Care Services Division and its seven hospitals had to absorb $29 million in midyear cuts as a result of a Jindal administration plan to cover a $250 million state budget hole. The sheet provided to LSU Board members showed a $34 million expense reduction.
The midyear state budget hole came about because revenues were coming in less than projected and costs associated with public education rose.
LSU had counted on using some surplus dollars generated above its budgeted amount to fund services through the June 30 end of the state budget year. Cerise said LSU was willing to keep the services but “we don’t have the ability to spend the money.”