LETTER OF INTENT - Management of the state-owned safety-net hospitals in north Louisiana could soon be changing hands. LSU-Health Sciences Center in Shreveport’s - Chancellor Dr. G. E. Ghali, at a press conference yesterday-- officially announced a new partnership with Ochsner Health System which has signed a letter of intent to manage the state-owned safety-net hospitals in north Louisiana.
"We look forward to working with the Ochsner Health System and I personally see great opportunities on the horizon, " explained Ghali "not only in the delivery of quality of care which is very, very , very important to us; but also relative to the development of medical education and research."
The move is aimed at ending years of disputes over operations of the facilities by BRF, formerly known as the Biomedical Research Foundation. which has managed the hospitals for four years. This arrangement has been a focus of Gov. John Bel Edwards--- Jay Dardenne the governor’s chief of Administration explained some of the details.
"All the appropriate parties have signed or are signing today a 'non-binding letter of intent' that will turn over the day-to-day management of University Health System in both Shreveport and Monroe to Ochsner.." Dardenne further explained that the agreement was not on specifics but more in "principle and concept" to which actual details would be worked out later.
LSU System F. Kin g Alexander was on hand to comment on how this arrangement would affect the education mission of the medical school. "We have that responsibility to attract some of the best and brightest faculty, staff, as well as students; to keep our best and brightest. To train them in the best educational services, the best educational practices, and to jeep them in this marketplace to help the health and well-being of northern Louisiana, Shreveport, and Monroe, the entire state and region."
BRF had secured the contract to operate the hospitals in 2013 as part of then Gov. Bobby Jindal's privatization of the state's charity hospital system even though it had never run a patient-care facility before taking over the hospitals. Oschner Health System currently owns, manages or is affiliated with 30 hospitals in Louisiana —it currently manages the state-owned, safety-net hospital in Terrebonne Parish, an operating agreement that has generated no widespread criticism.
