[StBernard] Free Medical Care Ending March 31

[Westley Annis]

Free Medical Care Ending March 31 

March 24 , 2006

By: Steve Cannizaro


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Free medical care and free medicine to end in Chalmette on March 31 as U.S.
Public Health Service leaves and services are privatized when 22,000
square-foot intermediate facility opens on northeast end of disaster relief
center 
 
 
Free medical care and free medicine for St. Bernard Parish residents will
end March 31 when the U.S. Public Health Services departs Chalmette and
medical care is transitioned into a new 22,000-square foot barracks-type
metal building at the northeast corner of the disaster relief center in the
Super Wal-Mart parking lot on West Judge Perez Drive. 
 
The new building will soon replace a triplewide trailer office on the
southeast corner of the disaster relief center, shortly after the U.S.
Public Health Services employees leave. 
 
Local physicians Dr. Bryan Bertucci, who is St. Bernard's coroner and a
family practice doctor, internal medicine specialist Dr. Paul Verrette and
emergency room Dr. Lee Domangue, all of whom had been working at the
triplewide trailer, will take an increasing role there, then will move into
the 22,000-square foot building. 
 
The three said in a statement that the Public Health Service employees were
"angels of mercy,'' "They gave up vacations, pay and family time, all to
help us in our time of need'' in St. Bernard Parish. 
 
The 22,000-square foot building is being called an intermediate facility
because at some point the doctors expect to be able to build a new hospital
in Chalmette in an area with other medical buildings. 
 
The latest building "may stay two years, possibly three,'' Bertucci said
Friday, while "we work on building a hospital and office buildings.''
Doctors would like to see the state help in creating a medical village that
would include a hospital, doctors' offices, a nursing home, homes for
assisting living, a surgery center, a cancer center and diagnostic
facilities. 
 
The intermediate building will have essential medical equipment, a lab and
other medical facilities, but will have an "urgent care room,'' not an
emergency room. 
"It's not a total solution but enough to open our doors,'' the doctors'
statement said. "We are ready to take our first steps medically.'' 
 
Patients will need to pay for medical care, through insurance or otherwise,
the doctors said. 
 
"Free clinic visits, free medicine - all good things must come to an end,''
the doctors' statement said. The people who are leaving "have gotten us off
the floor, helped us to stand, and walk ever so slowly. We thank them by
rejoining the medical human race - by building a hospital, medical village,
reprivatizing ourselves and showing them their work wasn't in vain.'' 
 
St. Bernard officials have been negotiating with the Franciscan
Missisionaries of Our Lady, a nonprofit health care system that runs Our
Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge as the possible
operator of the intermediate medical. 
 
No formal announcement has been made. 
 
Universal Health Services, which operated Chalmette Medical Center that was
destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, has not reopened. 
 
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