By GEORGE MORRIS
Advocate staff
writer
CRIS MANDRY/Provided
National Guard Lt. Col. Cris
Mandry of Baton Rouge
flies the LSU flag during a previous deployment to Afghanistan. Mandry,
chief of Emergency Medicine at the LSU Earl K. Long Medical Center, is about
to head to the Middle East again with Army
Special Forces.
When Dr. Cris Mandry of Baton
Rouge leaves in the next week for his third National Guard tour
in Afghanistan,
he won’t be packing a stethoscope.
Although his
primary job is as director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the LSU Earl
K. Long
Medical Center,
Mandry’s military role is as a lieutenant colonel
in Special Forces. If that seems remarkable, consider this: Mandry, 57, also is a member of the New Orleans Police
Department SWAT team and was one of the first officers rescuing flood-trapped
residents following Hurricane Katrina.
Going to the front
lines in the global conflict with Islamic terror groups is the latest chapter
in an extremely active life.
“I’ve been very,
very fortunate,” Mandry said. “Basically,
everything I wanted I’ve been able to achieve. So, I just feel it’s the right
thing to do.”
For the next 10
months, he’ll help train an Afghan commando force in a region where attacks
on American and coalition forces are increasing in size and sophistication.
“Afghanistan has sort of become
the center of the war,” Mandry said. “We were able
to turn the tide in Iraq …
so, their focus has now shifted to Afghanistan. That’s important to
them, because they have to have some kind of victory. If not, their
recruitment becomes more difficult.”
Mandry also went to Afghanistan in 2003 and 2006 with
Army National Guard 2nd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group. Both
deployments alternated between helping Afghanistan’s people recover from
the 2001 war to oust ruling Taliban and al-Qaida fighters and trying to
create a competent Afghan army.
“These guys have a
centuries-long tradition of being fighters, but not really organized,” Mandry said. “You’re really talking basic soldiering
skills … like just getting them to show up. They would kind of wander in and
wander out.”
The Afghan army
has improved enough that Special Forces are training a more advanced commando
group. They will focus on the border with Pakistan, a mountainous area
that, because of its remoteness, has allowed Taliban and al-Quaida forces to hide and carry out attacks on civilians
and coalition military forces.
Mandry will spend some time at headquarters, but
also will be at remote firebases and expects to participate in operations
designed to intercept and disrupt enemy forces, who
no longer are relying only on hit-and-run tactics.
“They’ve built
some very good bunkers,” he said. “They’re not running. They’ll have an
assault force. They’ll have a quick-reaction force. They’ll have blocking
positions. That has really changed in the last year. We’re anticipating we’re
going to have more wounded and we’re going to lose more people. We’re going
into it knowing that.”
The mission is
complicated. Many civilians in that area hold more loyalty to tribal ties
than to a national government that has historically had little direct impact
on their lives. In addition to providing security, American military forces
provide medical care, dig wells, build schools and otherwise help improve
villagers’ lives.
To remind him of
why he is there, Mandry keeps a photo in his Kevlar
helmet of a man falling from the burning World Trade
Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
“We cannot allow
(terror groups) to have a safe haven that they can train, plan and exercise
command and control,” he said. “It’s going to take us a long time. There are
several stages. We have to defeat, basically, the outsiders, the extremists,
and we have to create an infrastructure there which has never existed. I
think Genghis Khan had it for a few years. But short of … going in there and
making it our 51st state, we’ve got to make them capable of defending
themselves and maintaining some kind of centralized government.”
Mandry said he is one of many Special Forces
soldiers with a police background. A New Orleans
native, he joined the NOPD and, after graduating from the University of New Orleans,
was accepted to medical school. He trained in emergency medicine at Charity Hospital
and came to Baton Rouge
in 1986 for an internal medicine residency at EKL. He became the hospital’s
emergency department director in 1989. His wife, Dr. Sarah d’Autremont, is now EKL’s
emergency medical residency director.
He maintained
affiliation with NOPD and rode out Katrina with his unit in a downtown hotel.
When they received word of flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward, they boarded
boats and started rescuing people trapped on their roofs and in their homes
and attics. His military dive training was put to use as he had to enter some
houses underwater.
Mandry and his colleagues worked two days
rescuing people before they realized the overwhelming scope of the storm’s
damage.
“But it was
tremendous to be able to train your whole life and then be able to put it to
use,” he said.
That attitude is
something Mandry said he communicates to residents
in his EKL program and is something he carries to Afghanistan.
“Not to get super
religious, but Luke 12:48 says ‘To whom much is given, much is also
required,’” he said. “I’ve been very, very fortunate. Anything I thought that
I could do I’ve been able to do. Some of it came a little bit later, but it
was a sense that it was the right thing to do.”
http://www.2theadvocate.com/features/49655572.html
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By MARSHA SHULER
Advocate Capitol
News Bureau
PATRICK
DENNIS/THE ADVOCATE
The new mental health regional crisis center on the
LSU’s Earl K. Long Medical Center
campus may not open unless funds are found to operate the facility.
A new regional
mental health crisis center at LSU’s Earl K. Long Medical
Center cannot open
because there’s no money to operate it.
The center would
provide police and others a place to send patients whose mental health
problems have become threatening. Currently, these patients are dropped off
at emergency rooms that are designed to treat people with urgent medical
problems.
Finishing touches
are being made on a modular building that will house a 24-bed specialized
emergency room on the Airline
Highway hospital’s campus.
But the state
budget that went into effect Wednesday doesn’t appropriate the money needed
to open it, said LSU Systems Vice President Fred Cerise, who oversees
hospitals and medical education programs.
Operational funding
for the crisis center is one of two casualties in the state’s new budget
affecting EKL, Cerise said. The other problem area involves a radiology
services upgrade planned for EKL’s new north Baton Rouge medical
center, he said.
To fund both would
require $1.8 million, Cerise said.
“Without
additional funding, they have to see if they can squeeze the budget in other
places” to free up money to go to the programs, Cerise said.
“I’m sure a lot of
people will be disappointed,” he said.
The crisis center is
the result of efforts by the Capital Area Health and Human Services District.
The district used $1.43 million in federal funds to construct a modular
building on EKL’s campus.
The center would
provide one-stop shop providing both the care they need in a hospital and
access to continuing mental health treatment upon their release.
An estimated 8,400
people a year are going to area emergency departments because of behavioral
health problems — taking beds and personnel away from medical patients.
Capital Area
Director Jan Kasofsky said she had no prior warning
that there were funding problems.
“Obviously, this
is not to anybody’s benefit. If anyone had been aware it was no longer in the
budget, there would have been a lot of interest in getting it funded,” Kasofsky said.
She and EKL
administrator Kathy Viator said identifying ways to get the center
operational is a top priority.
Viator said she
will investigate moving some emergency room personnel to the new unit. But
that could be problematic because it would leave the emergency room short.
“We hate to rob
Peter to pay Paul,” she said.
Viator said she
also wants to investigate “potential links” with Capital Area to see if it
has access to grant funding to support operations of the crisis center.
“It’s just a shame
we can’t open it at all to meet the needs of that population,” she said.
The center is a
key part of a 10-step, systemwide approach to get
those suffering with mental illness the coordinated treatment they need to be
productive citizens and stay out of crisis. Development of the system has
involved law enforcement, hospital officials, mental health experts and
community groups.
“The community
came up with this idea and the community has to figure out a solution,” Kasofsky said.
Cerise said the
new state budget also leaves EKL short of the funding needed to move upgraded
radiology services as planned from the hospital to its new north Baton Rouge medical
clinic. The state-of-the-art clinic opened in June, a short distance down Airline Highway
from the hospital.
Plans included
adding more sophisticated radiology equipment, which is more costly to
operate, Cerise said.
“They may be able
to phase-in some services,” he said.
http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/49657922.html#
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E.H. Killeen
I am a native of New Orleans and lived
there my entire life until Katrina. I worked in the city's tourism industry
for 25 years.
Let us get on with
the medical complex. However, we should keep the old Charity building.
It can and should
be used for administrative purposes and doctor's offices. It could have a
practical use.
The building was
built in 1938 and designed by the architectural firm of Seiforth
and Dreyfous, who also did the Capitol in Baton Rouge. It is a
part of history.
This building
would be too expensive to reproduce today. When will we learn to stop
destroying our historic past?
As a
preservationist, I want to save the Charity Hospital
building. Put it to a different use.
E.H. Killeen
Metairie
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/letterstoeditor/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1246512768161040.xml&coll=1
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Shreveport Times | 07.02.09
By Kelsey McKinney
LSU Health
Sciences Center-Shreveport has paid $706,677.79 to settle allegations that it
defrauded Medicare, the federal insurance program, by billing for medical
services not provided by teaching physicians between 1995 and 2005.
The settlement was
reached June 23 in a civil lawsuit brought by two whistleblowers. Both are
former LSUHSC-Shreveport employees. One was fired before the petition was
filed in October 2002, the other the following year, their attorney said.
"The federal
investigation revealed that (LSUHSC-Shreveport) routinely submitted claims
for payment to Medicare Part B on behalf of teaching physicians who claimed
to have assisted orthopedic residents during surgery when, in fact, they were
not present for the procedure as required," according to a statement
released Wednesday by U.S. Attorney Donald Washington's office.
LSUHSC-Shreveport,
in the settlement agreement, denies it has any liability relating to the
contentions laid out in the federal lawsuit and allegations leveled in the
agreement.
Elaine King, LSU Hospital
spokeswoman, on Wednesday said she could not comment on ongoing litigation.
In addition to the
payment, for three years LSUHSC-Shreveport must maintain its compliance
program, report overpayments, notify the government of any ongoing
investigations or legal proceedings, file annual reports, submit to audits
and retain its records, according to a certification of compliance agreement
between the local facility and the inspector general's office in the Health
and Human Services Department.
The lawsuit filed
by Dr. William Overdyke, a teaching physician in
the hospital's orthopedic department, and Susan Belgert
Hodnett, the orthopedic head nurse, claims Drs.
J.A. Albright and Kalia Sadasivan
were "routinely absent from surgical procedures to which they were
scheduled to attend. Irrespective of the fact of their physical absence, (the
doctors) repeatedly signed billing slips indicating their presence at hundred
and possibly thousands of surgical procedures ... for the purpose of billing
Medicare and Medicaid."
Obtaining the
payments from Medicare requires physicians to specifically describe and
certify the scope and extent of their role during surgical procedures
performed by residents, the release states.
In the time freed
up by not attending these surgeries, Albright and Sadasivan
treated "private pay patients," alleges the lawsuit, which names
both doctors as defendants.
The hospital
"divided the federal reimbursements between the hospital and the
teaching physicians."
The lawsuit was
filed under the federal False Claims Act, a civil fraud law that allows
someone who witnesses fraud to file a claim. It is the government's principal
tool in recouping dollars obtained through fraud and misrepresentation, the U.S.
attorney's release states.
Of the $706,677.79
paid by LSUHSC-Shreveport, $141,335.55 will go to Overdyke
and Hodnett as a whistleblower fee, said their
attorney, Patrick Jackson.
Overdyke and Hodnett were
fired and were the targets of a "campaign of retrobution"
in which the two were "blackballed" from their professions, Jackson
said Wednesday.
Overdyke was "harassed in his employment and
eventually terminated by defendant doctors Albright and Sadasivan,"
the lawsuit states.
Overdyke was fired in July 2001; Hodnett fired in September 2003.
Sadasivan brought unfounded ethics charges against Overdyke in an effort to ruin his reputation in the medical
community, the lawsuit alleges. Sadasivan alleged
that Overdyke received kickbacks from medical
device manufacturers, used his position to increase sales of medical devices
from his wife's employer, implanted defective medical products and operated
on patients while under the influence of alcohol.
LSUHSC-Shreveport
Chancellor/Dean Dr. John C. McDonald launched an investigation into whether Overdyke violated an ethics policy because he "had a
spouse who had a company we were buying from," McDonald told The Times
in February 2003.
The state Ethics
Board fined Overdyke and his wife, a representative
of M.D. Medical Inc., $10,000 each in October 2003 for violating the state
ethics code by being involved with a company that does business with the Shreveport teaching
hospital. Overdyke's lawyer at that time called the
ruling retaliatory and alleged the Ethics Board was being used by LSUHSC.
Hodnett, who was promoted ahead of her peers at LSU Hospital
and had a "impeccable" record of service
with the hospital, was fired following a deposition she gave that detailed
doctors' absence from surgeries they were scheduled to attend, Jackson said. She was
given poor reviews by her former employer when she applied for jobs at other
hospitals, he said.
"This
institution used all its connections to smear these people to cover up the
illegal conduct of the institution and its employees."
The federal
investigation spurred by Overdyke's and Hodnett's allegations lasted seven years during which
there was a gag order, Jackson
said. "As their reputations were being ruined, they couldn't even say
anything to defend themselves. As of Friday, they've been vindicated."
Jackson noted that neither of his clients received
"a single black mark" during the investigation and further explained
that his clients never participated in fraudulent activity.
Now Jackson is trying to
reach a settlement with the hospital over Overdyke's
and Hodnett's claims for lost wages, lost benefits,
damage to their reputations and other items allowed by state and federal
whistleblower protection laws.
"The new administration at the hospital and at the system level are
doing their best to restore the reputation of this once-great
institution," Jackson
said.
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090702/NEWS01/907020317
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The Associated
Press
(AP) — SHREVEPORT, La.
- Federal prosecutors say LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport will pay more
than $700,000 to settle allegations that it defrauded Medicare by billing for
medical services not provided by teaching physicians between 1995 and 2005.
U.S. Attorney
Donald W. Washington says an investigation found that the facility routinely
submitted claims for payment to Medicare Part B on behalf of doctors who said
they helped orthopedic residents during surgery when in fact they were not
present for the procedure as required.
The settlement,
announced Wednesday, was filed under the Federal False Claims Act, a civil
law that allows the government to recoup money obtained through fraud and
misrepresentation. It also allows individuals who witnessed fraud to sue on
behalf of the United
States and share a portion of any money
recovered.
The fraud was
exposed by William Overdyke, a former teaching
physician in the orthopedic department, and Susan Belgard
Hodnett, a registered nurse.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-31/124652652723060.xml&storylist=louisiana
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Shreveport Times | 07.02.09
Two are better than one, because they have
a good return for their labor.
Ecclesiastes 4:9
Decision makers in
the realms of health care and public safety perhaps have been taking the
wisdom of Solomon to heart.
A
collaboration between
the financially strapped Shriners
Hospital and LSU
Health Sciences
Center in Shreveport makes sense if for no other
reason than proximity. They sit next to each other on Kings Highway.
But more
importantly there is the shared mission of children's health combined with LSUHSC's role in educating new generations of physicians
and allied health professionals.
The Shriners national budget woes that threaten six
hospitals, including its first, the 87-year-old Shreveport children's orthopedics hospital,
present an opportunity for this partnership that conceivably could expand to
other institutions as well.
The public, both
as taxpayers and paying health care customers, are often perplexed that such
collaborations aren't more the norm, rather than high-stakes competition than
can result in costly duplication of services.
If Shriners meeting at their national convention this month
see the wisdom of keeping the Shreveport
hospital open, hopefully it will mean a more efficient local medical
community that also results in improved care.
In the realm of
emergency services, a similar outcome should come from a partnership between
the Shreveport Fire Department and Caddo Fire District 5. No, it's not
exactly city-parish government — the ultimate dream — but it does mark a bit
of common sense in providing fire and emergency medical service to southeast Shreveport.
A "no
brainer" is how Caddo Commissioner Mike Thibodeaux framed the proposal
that still needs Shreveport City Council approval. Indeed, why did it take
this long to set up this automatic backup system?
As Shreveport residential
development continues to sprawl along Ellerbe Road, city services haven't
kept up, whether the need was water pressure or fire protection. When funds
were approved to build a Southern Loop fire
station, the city found it didn't have money to operate it until $140,000 was
raked together amid the ensuing controversy. Meanwhile, Fire District 5
firehouses are tantalizingly closer in many instances.
The plan for each
department automatically to be called to provide backup for the other will
cost taxpayers no additional dollars for either agency, officials said
Tuesday.
More certain fire
response. No additional cost. Yes, it's a no brainer.
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090702/OPINION03/907020306/1058
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HIV/AIDS has been
on the rise for the past two years, and Louisiana
is on the leading edge of that troubling trend, with New
Orleans in second place among all U.S.
cities for AIDS infection rates and Baton
Rouge in third.
HIV diagnoses
increased 9 percent in New Orleans
from 2007 to 2008, but among younger African-American men the jump was more
startling: 23 percent for 20- to 24-year-olds and 30 percent for 45- to
54-year olds.
One factor is a
decreasing concern about HIV/AIDS on the part of young people, who've heard
about the disease all their lives. Another is a stigma against homosexuality,
which can discourage African-American men from getting tested or being honest
with partners about their sexual behavior.
Several
organizations recently held free, anonymous rapid testing in conjunction with
National HIV Awareness Day. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation/Magic Johnson
Caravan also stopped in New Orleans last month
to provide free testing at the Algiers
Family Health
Center and at Cafe du
Monde.
Those efforts and
last year's initiative by African-American clergy to urge testing by getting
tested themselves are all critical ways to continue the battle against this
epidemic.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1246512751161040.xml&coll=1
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Rep. Ahn "Joseph" Cao uses health fair to tout national
reforms
by Amber
Sandoval-Griffin, The Times-Picayune
Kicking off of his
AAA Health Care Initiative at a community health fair Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Ahn "Joesph" Cao,
R-New Orleans, said the country needs to expand and find a way to pay for
health care reforms.
And he used
ongoing efforts in his District 2 as an example of the programs Congress
should finance to provide better health care throughout the United States.
"As we go
forward as a nation to discuss and to address health care reform, I hope that
our leaders in Congress will take the opportunity to take a look at what we
are trying to do down here as a community, " Cao said.
Wednesday afternoon,
Cao joined forces with the LSU Health Sciences Center and other health
organizations in the New Orleans area to launch his "Affordable,
Accessible, Accountable" health initiative and offer free health
screenings and education to the public at Grace Episcopal Church on Canal
Street.
Steve Nelson, dean
of Louisiana State
University Health
Sciences Center
said that LSU was happy to be involved with Cao's
health initiative, noting the congressman's support of LSU's efforts to build
a new teaching hospital in New Orleans,
replacing the shuttered Charity
Hospital.
"These are
issues that we are concerned about -- the lack of health care in the city and
the lack of accurate adequate infrastructure, "
Cao said. "In respect to Charity, my main focus is to get the necessary funding, the $492 million that the state contends FEMA
owes the state, to either rebuild the old Charity or to build a new
state-of-the-art hospital."
More than 50
volunteers from LSU Health Sciences
Center, LSU Interim
Hospital and other health
groups provided services to more than 200 people at Wednesday's health fair.
Adults and children lined up outside the church nearly an hour before the
fair began to receive screenings and other services ranging from diabetes
testing to prescription drug education assistance.
After receiving a
blood pressure and diabetes screening, 47-year-old Clarence Smith who is
uninsured, touted the impact of the fair on the community.
"It's very
important because for many citizens that don't have insurance, this allows
them a chance to get a checkup, " Smith said.
"You can see that there is a need amongst the citizens from this
turnout."
Smith's checkups
revealed no problems, but for others, the screenings showed a need for
immediate medical attention. Two people receiving a health screening for
diabetes were sent to the hospital, according to Leslie Capo, director of
information services at LSU Health Sciences
Center in New Orleans.
The Rev. Peter
Gray, who opened the doors of the Grace Episcopal Church for Cao and LSU to
host the event, said he was grateful for the effort of the fair, but called
it a small step for health care reform throughout New Orleans.
"We know that
a single health fair on a hot July afternoon is merely a drop in the bucket
for what ails us, " Gray said. "We know
that for health care to truly be affordable, accessible and accountable we
must do more. Our local city leaders and Congressman Cao himself will need to
give their best efforts and appropriate the necessary resources to fill the
gaps in a way that is both effective and efficient."
http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2009/07/rep_ahn_joseph_cao_uses_health.html
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Jindal's
vetoes cut $390,000 for Shreveport-area projects
Shreveport Times | 07.02.09
By Mike Hasten
BATON ROUGE — Gov.
Bobby Jindal's use of his line-item veto pen this
week scratched through 53 items and provisions, slicing millions of dollars
that were to go to local governments and organizations throughout the state.
Shreveport-area
projects were not unscathed as the governor cut $390,000 worth of projects.
Among those vetoed
was $250,000 to Louisiana State University-Shreveport for the LaPREP enrichment program for middle and early high
school students.
Carlos Spaht, the creator and director of the LaPrep program, said the news was heartbreaking.
"I'm
disappointed, very disappointed, but we're not going to give up," he
said. "We're still going to write grants."
This year, the
program expanded with a pre-LaPrep program called
Get Set for fourth and fifth grades in Mansfield and Keithville, and a
post-program called AVEA (Animation and Visual Effect
Academy) for high
school aged children. With the news of the veto, the two new expansions will
be put on hold while officials look for funds for the 18-year-old LaPrep program.
Chancellor Vincent
Marsala called the governor's veto "an
unfortunate event for the children of our area".
"This program
has attained regional and national acclaim in its goal to encourage young
students to study math and science, remain in school and go to college,"
he said. "The failure of the state to support this excellent model for Louisiana and the
nation is a sad situation."
Other items vetoed
included:
n $100,000 to the Cultural Development
Program for the Louisiana
Association of Nonprofit Organizations for Northern Region Community
Development Planning.
n $40,000 to the Caddo Parish Juvenile Court for the
Juvenile Mental Health Court.
Jindal's statewide cuts totaled $3 million in
legislative pet projects plus $14 million that would have kept a New Orleans mental
hospital open.
Prior to the
recently concluded legislative session, the governor reminded lawmakers that
he had established criteria for funding non-government organizations and that
he would veto any that didn't meet those specifications.
Many of the vetoes
were local projects, but some were within state government. Three just struck
language that was deemed unnecessary.
"Just as families
and businesses do in response to challenging financial times, we took steps
to make sure that government lives within its means, passing a state budget
for the upcoming fiscal year that tightens the belt of state government while
also protecting critical services," Jindal
said in a news release.
Many of the
projects injected into House Bill 881, a supplemental appropriations bill,
had been vetoed from HB1, the primary appropriations bill that funds state
government.
For most of the 55
items vetoed from HB881, this was their axing in a month.
The primary
purpose of HB881 was to restore funding that was being cut from higher
education and health care. Lawmakers chose also to add $434 million in local
projects.
Much of the
funding was in HB1, but because the bill passed by the Legislature relied on
funding sources contingent on legislation that the governor vowed to veto, he
sliced it.
Jindal said that "working closely with the
Legislature, we took steps through House Bill 881 to mitigate reductions to
higher education and healthcare and to give us an opportunity to prepare for
continuing budget challenges in the years ahead."
HB881 restored
$118.1 million to higher education, which was facing a $219 million cut.
That's a reduction of 6.78 percent from current funding, after a $50 million
mid-year cut.
The Department of
Health and Hospitals, including restorations made in HB881 and $212.8 million
authorized by House Bill No. 879 to hospitals for uncompensated care and
hurricane related losses, has a 2.94 percent decrease from the previous
fiscal year, Jindal said.
The Medicaid
private provider program for FY 10 totals $4.2 billion, which the governor
says is a $179 million or 4 percent decrease from
the previous year. That does not include the special one-time payment of
$212.8 million to hospitals. When these one-time hospital payments are
included, the net Medicaid private provider program expenditures will
increase by 0.75 percent.
Some of the
oddities vetoed were the Mayhaw Festival in
Calcasieu Parish and Friends of the Fire Departments Engines.
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090702/NEWS01/907020313
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Rapides Primary
Health Care
Center among Central
Louisiana facilities getting federal funds
Town Talk staff
The Rapides
Primary Health Care Center in Alexandria
will receive $446,700 to be used for construction of the Women's Pavilion
that will offer health-care services to women.
Patricia L. Lewis,
the center's CEO, said the funds are being provided by U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
HHS is providing a
total of $11.7 million in Recovery Act grants to 24 community health-care
centers around Louisiana.
The funds for Rapides
Primary Health Care Center will provide nearly a third of the $1.4 million
required for the Women's Pavilion project. State funds and program income
will be used to complete the project.
The Women's
Pavilion, which should be completed within two years, will be built behind
the existing medical center, located at 1217 Willow Glen River Road in Alexandria. The
Administration Department, which is currently housed in the Health Care
Center, will relocate to the Women's Pavilion, allowing for the expansion of
medical and dental services currently offered.
HHS is also
providing funds to these Cenla facilities:
--$638,780 to the
Catahoula Parish Hospital District #2 at Sicily Island.
--$609,660 to the
Out-Patient Medical
Center in Natchitoches.
--$250,000 to the Winn Community
Health Center
in Winnfield.
U.S. Sen. Mary
Landrieu, D-New Orleans, said the Winnfield facility had previously received
$100,000.
"These
Recovery Act grants provide Louisiana's
community health centers with an unprecedented opportunity to serve more
patients and meet the increased demand for primary health-care
services," Landrieu said.
The new Winn Community
Health Center
celebrated its grand opening in Winnfield on Tuesday. It will serve 17,000
people.
"This (Winn)
center will provide critical health services to a previously underserved
area. Now residents will not have to travel great distances to receive the
care they need," Landrieu said.
http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20090702/NEWS01/907020348/1002
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Point of View: Jindal slashes mental health
Posted by State
Rep. Neil Abramson, Guest Columnist
Officers Nicola
Cotton and Latoya Johnson apparently died in vain. The death of these two New Orleans police
officers, who were gunned down by mentally ill people, highlighted the fact
that we don't have sufficient mental health care in this city. But instead of
making mental health care a priority in the recent legislative session, Gov.
Bobby Jindal vetoed the Legislature's funding for
the New Orleans
Adolescent Hospital.
The governor
championed huge cuts in many areas, including higher education and health
care. NOAH was part of that axing.
Last year NOAH
provided both in-patient and out-patient services for the New Orleans area at an approximate cost of
$23 million. The proposed executive budget sent to the Legislature this year
called for NOAH to be closed completely. Instead of funding NOAH, the
executive budget directed about $4 million to two "new" clinics,
one in Mid-City and one in Algiers,
to provide the out-patient services that NOAH provided last year. Neither
clinic has opened.
The executive budget
also proposed sending the in-patient services provided by NOAH last year to
the state's Southeast
Louisiana Hospital
in Mandeville.
With the support
of the House and Senate, the New
Orleans delegation redirected $14 million back from
Southeast to keep the in-patient mental health beds at NOAH. Those funds
included $10 million in Uncompensated Care money and $4 million in Social
Services Block Grant money, the same sources of money on which Southeast
operates. Under the Legislature's budget, NOAH therefore would have received
a total of $18 million -- $14 million for in-patient services and $4 million
for out-patient services, all of which could have been provided at one
facility. Opening two "new" clinics would also have been
unnecessary.
While the Legislature
restored some funding to higher education and other areas of health care, and
we wished we could have done more, legislators funded both NOAH and Southeast
within the existing budget and without requiring an additional revenue
source. In our budget, NOAH and Southeast would have experienced cuts like
many other institutions under the governor's budget -- 20 percent and 16
percent, respectively. Both facilities, however, would have remained open and
operational.
More importantly,
these in-patient beds would have remained on the south shore of Lake
Pontchartrain.
Gov. Jindal and Secretary Alan Levine of DHH defended their
plan to move these critical services to Mandeville, saying they will still
serve the mentally ill in Orleans, St.
Bernard, Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes.
You might as well ask these low-income, mentally ill patients to go to Arkansas, because they
and their families don't have the ability or the means to get to the north
shore.
Without these beds
on the south shore, our mentally ill patients are going to end up at local
private hospitals, which are required to treat them under federal law but
don't have either the capacity or the financial ability to do so. Or, these
patients are going to be left out on the street.
Despite our
repeated pleas to the administration for a real plan that would keep these
beds on the south shore, the administration provided none. With a stroke of
the pen, the governor eliminated vital mental health care in New Orleans and placed
the safety of our law enforcement officers and private citizens at serious
risk.
http://blog.nola.com/guesteditorials/2009/07/jindal_slashes_mental_health.html
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by Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Wednesday
that he intends to use "rational arguments" to douse
"panic-peddling" in Louisiana
about his health care plan, and then hope that if he can persuade
rank-and-file residents that the changes he's proposing are in their best
interests, the state's congressional delegation will follow.
"All I can do
is make rational arguments and hope they catch; it's a great experiment, " Obama said in an interview with small group of
reporters at the White House. The roundtable with reporters on health care
immediately followed a town hall meeting on the subject across the Potomac
River at Annandale Community College in Virginia.
Secretary of
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius issued
reports last week assessing the quality and affordability of health care in
each of the 50 states, with Louisiana
ranking at the bottom.
"Louisianians can't afford the status quo, " read a
headline on the report, which rated the state "very weak" on
overall quality of care, worse even than neighboring states Mississippi,
Texas and Arkansas, which were rated "weak, " and Alabama, which
was rated "average."
But despite what
the Obama administration said is the dire state of health care in Louisiana, the state's congressional delegation is among the most
resistant to Obama's plans for changes to health care, and especially his
call for a government option to compete with private insurers.
With the exception
of Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-New Orleans,
who has not said where he stands on the so-called "public option, " the state's delegates oppose the idea of a
government-sponsored plan competing with private insurers. That includes the
delegation's two Democrats, Rep. Charlie Melancon
and Sen. Mary Landrieu. Through a spokesman, Landrieu has said she supports
"a predominantly private system that features a federal backup plan that
serves as a safety net, " and not, as the Obama
administration would like, as a truly "robust" competitor.
'Old
ideological debate'
Because of her
opposition, Landrieu has come under attack in an ad campaign -- on the
Internet, then radio, and now TV -- orchestrated by the activist groups
Democracy for America,
Change Congress and MoveOn.org.
Asked about the
wisdom of that strategy, Obama said: "I can't answer for all the ads
that are being run on both sides of the debate; I don't watch them. I'm
focused on being in close contact with people like Mary, and I'm sure she's
talking to her constituents."
But, the president
said, "Let's be honest, some of the resistance here is the result of
many years of panic-peddling when it comes to health care and gets caught up
in old ideological debate, and you know Louisiana is a culturally conservative
and politically conservative state, and I think the specter of a government
takeover of health care, of socialized medicine, whenever those phrases are
thrown about, maybe they have more resonance."
But, Obama said,
"If we know that the status quo is not working for the people of
Louisiana, then the way to persuade the Louisiana delegation to support it is
coming up with a plan that is going to be good for the people of Louisiana,
and then my hope is that (the Louisiana delegation) is responsive to the
needs of the people."
Obama said he is
"not proposing a government takeover of health care. If you've got a
doctor you like or a health care plan you like in the private marketplace, we
don't want to mess with it. If your employer is providing you good care,
that's great."
"But, "
he said, "if you're underinsured or uninsured, then we want to provide
you with the opportunity to get good quality health care, and we want the
system as a whole to start using the health care money that we are using
already in a more intelligent way so we are getting more bang for our health
care dollar and over time people are getting healthier at lower cost."
'Self-reliant'
plan
Opponents of a
public option think the plan is a Trojan horse for a wholesale government takeover
of the insurance market. They say the competition between public and private
insurers will be rigged, with the public plan able to pay doctors and
hospitals less and shift the unpaid costs onto the private insurers. They
also say that the public option will, whenever it needs to, be able to tap
the deep pockets of the federal treasury.
But Obama said
that is not how he envisions the public plan operating.
"What I've
said is a public plan should not be dependent on ongoing taxpayer support,
that a public plan should be self-reliant on premiums and should be able to
provide a healthy dose of competition to private insurers who say they are
providing terrific coverage, " he said.
"And if the
public plan operating under the same rules as private plans turns out to be
keeping its administrative costs lower, is cheaper, is providing high-quality
care with a great network of doctors, that should be a spur for greater
innovation and efficiency in the private marketplace."
http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2009/07/obama_state_must_use_head_on_h.html
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From CNN Political
Producer Rebecca Sinderbrand
(CNN) – Sen. Mary
Landrieu is facing new pressure from liberal groups pushing for a public
health insurance option.
A coalition that
includes MoveOn.org, Democracy for America and Change Congress
released a 60-second television ad Wednesday highlighting contributions from
insurance companies and other industry interests to the Louisiana Democrat.
"For me, this
issue's personal," says breast cancer survivor Karen Gadbois
in the ad, which is slated to run in the Baton Rouge
and New Orleans
media markets for the next week. "So when I see Mary Landrieu take $1.6
million from health and insurance companies, I have to ask: Whose side are
you on?"
The ad flashes the
number for Landrieu's Senate office in Washington,
urging viewers to tell her to "support the public, not her insurance
backers."
The groups did not
reveal the size of the buy.
The new spot is
the latest element of a weeks-long campaign aimed at Landrieu and other senators
who have expressed skepticism about or opposition to a public option as
Congress weighs a massive overhaul of the nation's health care system. The
effort has already included state-level phone campaigns, Web and radio ads.
Last week, MoveOn announced a similar ad campaign targeting Sen. Kay
Hagan, D-North Carolina. The group is already running spots aimed at Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, D-California.
Landrieu is also
facing pressure from the right. Conservatives for Patients Rights, which
opposes President Obama's health care plan, has gone on the airwaves in a
dozen states — including Louisiana — that are represented by conservative
Democrats or moderate Republicans viewed as possible swing votes. The spots
urge viewers to call on their senators to reject any government-run option.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/01/landrieu-the-latest-senator-to-face-tv-pressure-over-public-option/
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Louisiana Supreme Court sends Dr. Pou public records case back to trial court
by The
Times-Picayune
A trial court
judge must determine whether any future criminal litigation against Dr. Anna Pou "could be reasonably anticipated" before
determining whether The Times-Picayune and CNN can obtain investigative
documents from the case, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.
In the decision,
written by Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball, the state's
high court found that the record currently is "insufficient" to
determine whether Pou could again face charges for
allegedly euthanizing patients at Memorial
Hospital in the days
after Hurricane Katrina.
Both the Orleans
Parish district attorney's office and Louisiana Attorney General Buddy
Caldwell have indicated they have no intention of reinstating the criminal
investigation against Pou initiated by former
Attorney General Charles Foti. But Caldwell in a Supreme
Court hearing last fall argued to the justices that he still considered the
case open and news organizations should be blocked from looking at Foti's case files.
The opinion states
that a contradictory hearing must be held by the trial judge to determine
whether future prosecution is reasonably anticipated.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/louisiana_supreme_court_sends.html
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By Richard Laliberte
To be successful at any big undertaking — starting a new
career, salvaging a shaky marriage, mastering a foreign language — you have
to "give it 110 percent," as the saying goes. But when it comes to
what may be the most important change of all — revitalizing your health — you
may be better off giving only 10 percent and not worrying too much about the
other proverbial 100. "You're more likely to succeed by making small
changes," says Catherine Champagne, Ph.D., professor of research at the
Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University System.
"If you totally overhaul your diet or start an ambitious exercise
program, you're less likely to stick with it."
Micro-improvements do more than chip away at a larger
objective — they accomplish plenty on their own. Some of these are
cumulative; do several and you'll see an even bigger benefit. Here are (count
'em) 10 small shifts that can reward you with a big
health payoff.
1. Smile at the Scale
The small change: Lose 10 percent of your body weight. If
you're 5' 5" and weigh 160 pounds, shaving off just 10 percent (16
pounds) will take you from the "overweight" category to a normal
body mass index (a measure of your height and weight in relation to each
other). If you weigh 180, losing 18 pounds moves you below the dangerous
threshold of clinical obesity. What's more, it's a manageable goal. "We
find that people who lose just 1 percent of their body weight per week can
lose 10 percent in two to three months without feeling they're making a
sacrifice," says Maciej Buchowski,
Ph.D., director of the Energy Balance Core Laboratory at Vanderbilt
University Medical Center.
The big gains: Dropping pounds — and 10 percent is the
initial target touted by the National Institutes of Health — will do more
than let you go down a size or more in your jeans. It can also lower blood
pressure, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides, making you a less likely
candidate for heart attack or stroke. You'll also cut your chances of
becoming diabetic. In fact, in a recent multicenter study, people who lost
just a little over two pounds lowered their diabetes risk by 16 percent. And
in new research at the University of California, San Francisco, heavy women
with incontinence who lost somewhat less than 10 percent of their body weight
reduced leakage 47 percent after six months (compared with a control group
who received only educational support and saw a 28 percent drop in symptoms).
2. Take Your Dog for a Walk
The small change: Up your exercise 10 percent. Even if
you're completely sedentary, your body still burns at least 1,000 calories a
day (depending on your weight and age). So boosting that by 10 percent
translates to a mere 100 calories — an amount you could expend by taking Fido
out for a 28-minute walk. No dog? Mow the lawn with a hand-powered mower for
14 minutes, or walk up and down stairs for 15 minutes.
The big gains: A burn of 100 extra calories a day could
help you drop up to 10 pounds in a year, provided you don't eat more (though
you don't have to eat less, either). Even if you're already active — that is,
you meet current guidelines of at least two and a half hours of moderate
activity a week — heart health improves progressively (more exercise is
better), so you'll still benefit.
Moving more can also cut breast cancer risk — walking 75
minutes (a little over 10 minutes a day) to two and a half hours a week drops
your odds 18 percent, the Women's Health Initiative found. And exercise calms
nerves even better than various nondrug treatments for anxiety, such as
therapy and meditation, a review of 49 studies found.
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Jackson's hospital is known for 'raising the
dead'
By MARILYNN
MARCHIONE
When Michael
Jackson went into cardiac arrest, rescuers took him to a place known for
bringing the dead back to life. A world-renowned surgeon at the UCLA Medical
Center has pioneered a
way to revive people that most doctors would have long written off, including
a woman whose heart had stopped for 2 1/2 hours.
Tested on a few
dozen cardiac arrest patients, 80 percent survived. Usually, more than 80
percent perish.
"They took
people who were basically dead, not all that different than Michael Jackson,
and saved most of them," said Dr. Lance Becker, an emergency medicine
specialist at the University
of Pennsylvania and an
American Heart Association spokesman.
Could Jackson, too, have been
saved?
It's impossible to
know. Doctors at the hospital worked on him for an hour. The UCLA expert,
cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Gerald Buckberg, said he
was not personally involved in Jackson's
treatment, and that too little is known about what preceded it.
"We have no
idea when he died versus when he was found," Buckberg
said in a telephone interview.
However, the
results in other patients show that "the window is wide open to new
thinking" about how long people can be successfully resuscitated after
their hearts quit beating, Buckberg said. "We
can salvage them way beyond the current time frames that are used. We've
changed the concept of when the heart is dead permanently."
They call it
"the Lazarus syndrome" for the man the Bible says Jesus raised from
the dead.
Let's be clear: No
one is saying that people long dead without medical attention can be revived.
The lucky ones in Buckberg's study received quick
help, and the reason they suffered cardiac arrest was known and could be
fixed: blocked arteries causing a heart attack, in most cases.
Buckberg's method requires:
_Prompt CPR —
rhythmic chest compressions — to maintain blood pressure until the patient
gets to a hospital.
_Use of a
heart-lung machine to keep blood and oxygen moving through the body while
doctors remedy what caused the heart to quiver or stop in the first place,
such as a drug overdose or a clogged artery.
_Special
procedures and medicines to gradually restore blood and oxygen flow, so a
sudden gush does not cause fresh damage.
Without all three
elements, patients might suffer brain damage if they survive at all.
"You can save
the heart and lose the brain," Buckberg
explained.
UCLA and hospitals
in Birmingham, Ala.;
Ann Arbor, Mich.;
and in Germany
tested Buckberg's method on 34 patients who had
been in cardiac arrest for an average of 72 minutes. All had failed
resuscitation methods with standard CPR and defibrillation to try to shock
their hearts back to beating.
Only seven died.
Only two survivors were left with permanent neurological damage. Results were
published in 2006 in the journal Resuscitation.
Dr. Constantine Athanasuleas (pronounced uh-than-uh-SOO'-lee-us), a
surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, treated one man in the
study who had been in cardiac arrest for about an hour and a half. The man's
wife, a nurse, did CPR until a helicopter brought him to the hospital.
"He was flatlined," with a heart "as still as your
dining room table," Athanasuleas said.
Doctors put him on
a heart-lung machine, whisked him to the catheterization lab to see if he had
artery blockages, then did bypass surgery to detour
around them.
"The guy went
home and was neurologically perfect" at least two years later, the
doctor said.
Buckberg treated a woman who had been in cardiac
arrest for 2 1/2 hours.
He would not send
her to the operating room until her CPR and blood pressure could be
maintained so further treatment could be attempted, he said.
Sadly, the woman
survived all this but died several weeks later from an infection.
Buckberg has taken his work further in experiments
with pigs in cardiac arrest. He deliberately deprived their brains of blood
flow for half an hour, then used his resuscitation
techniques to bring them back, with normal or near-normal function. Results
presented at a heart association conference last fall stunned many, including
Dr. Myron Weisfeldt, a cardiologist and chairman of
medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
"He's doing
extraordinary things. You almost don't believe the results that he got,"
Weisfeldt said of Buckberg.
"Most of us carry around in our head that if somebody's brain is
deprived of blood flow for 10 to 15 minutes that we're just not going to get
them back to any useful function. His data suggest it's possible."
Doctors in Japan,
Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia have tried approaches similar to Buckberg's with excellent results, said Becker, who is
about to try it in Philadelphia.
"It takes
training. It takes rethinking" to get doctors to adopt something this
new, and funding for bigger studies to prove it works, Buckberg
said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hhpHkU7y_tcYxvd5uB-xzA8ARujgD995PPDG1
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The New York Times | 07.01.09
By GARDINER HARRIS
and DUFF WILSON
WASHINGTON — Federal drug regulators warned Wednesday
that patients taking two popular drugs to stop smoking should be watched
closely for signs of serious mental illness, as reports mount of suicides
among the drugs’ users.
But officials
emphasized that fear should not stop patients from taking the
smoking-cessation medicines, Chantix, made by
Pfizer, and Zyban, made by GlaxoSmithKline, which
also sells it under the brand name Wellbutrin, for
depression.
“Stopping smoking
is a goal we should all be working towards,” said Dr. Curtis J. Rosebraugh, director of a drug evaluation office at the
Food and Drug Administration. “We don’t want to scare people off from trying
a medication that could help them achieve this goal. You should just be
careful.”
Pfizer will add a
so-called black box warning — the F.D.A.’s most
serious caution — to the packaging information for Chantix.
The Pfizer drug,
introduced in 2006, has about 90 percent of the market for prescription
smoking-cessation drugs, according to IMS Health, a health care information
company. Even so, Chantix sales — $846 million in
2008 — had been less than Pfizer had hoped because of previous warnings of
its side effects.
Glaxo will expand its existing black box warning
on Wellbutrin, citing suicidal thoughts by patients
who use it for depression, to include Zyban, which
has had only modest sales in the smoking cessation market.
Both companies
will also be required to conduct clinical trials to assess the mental health
risks associated with the drugs’ uses. Pfizer is already enrolling
schizophrenia patients in a trial.
Because smokers
and people trying to quit are statistically more likely to be depressed and
suicidal, officials for both companies said it was difficult to identify the
specific impact of the drugs on those risks. “Nicotine withdrawal itself can
be very difficult for people to endure,” Dr. Steve Romano, a Pfizer vice
president, said Wednesday.
Analysts said the
F.D.A. action would have little effect on sales because of previous
indications of the drugs’ psychiatric risks.
“I think the
market and physicians have already been sensitized to this,” said Catherine
J. Arnold, an analyst for Credit Suisse.
“I’m not
panicking,” said Jami Rubin, an analyst for Goldman Sachs, “Sales are already
down a lot. It is and will remain a small niche product.”
Chantix had already experienced a slight sales
decline last year from the $883 million achieved in 2007. And this year’s
first-quarter sales of $177 million were 36 percent below the corresponding
period last year.
Ms. Arnold
predicted that sales would probably continue falling to around $740 million
for all of 2009, but that demand for smoking-cessation treatments would
enable it to grow modestly after that — to perhaps half of the $2 billion in
annual sales Pfizer had originally hoped for the drug.
European officials
first alerted the F.D.A. in 2007 to problems associated with Chantix. In September of that year, Jeffrey Carter
Albrecht, a keyboard player from the pop-music group Edie Brickell
and New Bohemians, was killed by a neighbor who had complained that Mr. Albrecht
was banging on his door, ranting. Mr. Albrecht’s girlfriend blamed Chantix, which she said had made him hostile.
The widely
publicized event led to a cascade of similar reports and scrutiny by F.D.A.
safety officials, who have now received 98 reports of suicides and 188
reports of suicide attempts among those taking Chantix.
As officials
looked more closely, they found to their surprise that Zyban
has similar associated risks. The agency received 14 reports of suicides and
17 reports of suicide attempts among those taking Zyban.
No one knows why
the drugs are associated with mental problems. In some cases, patients could
be experiencing nicotine withdrawal, but some of the reports involved
patients who had yet to stop smoking. And many of the events happened just as
patients began or stopped therapy, officials said.
“If this is
nicotine withdrawal, it really doesn’t matter,” said Dr. Robert Temple, an
F.D.A. official. “You need to pay attention to them.”
The agency’s
action requires the drugs’ makers to mention the risk of suicide in
advertising, and it prevents the companies from using “reminder” ads, during
which consumers are encouraged to talk to their doctors about a health issue
but the product’s name is not mentioned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/health/02drug.html?ref=health
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The New York Times | 07.01.09
By ROSANNE M.
LEIPZIG
AS they do every
July, hospitals across America
are welcoming new interns, fresh from medical school graduation. Given how
much these trainees have yet to learn, common wisdom holds that it’s not a
good time of year to get sick. This may be particularly true for older
patients, because American medical schools require no training in geriatric
medicine.
Often even
experienced doctors are unaware that 80-year-olds are not the same as
50-year-olds. Pneumonia in a 50-year-old causes fever, cough and difficulty
breathing; an 80-year-old with the same illness may have none of these
symptoms, but just seem “not herself” — confused and unsteady, unable to get
out of bed.
She may end up in
a hospital, where a doctor prescribes a dose of antibiotic that would be
right for a woman in her 50s, but is twice as much as an 80-year-old patient
should get, and so she develops kidney failure, and grows weaker and more
confused. In her confusion, she pulls the tube from her arm and the catheter
from her bladder.
Instead of
re-evaluating whether the tubes are needed, her doctor then asks the nurses
to tie her arms to the bed so she won’t hurt herself. This only increases her
agitation and keeps her bed-bound, causing her to lose muscle and bone mass.
Eventually, she recovers from the pneumonia and her mind is clearer, so she’s
considered ready for discharge — but she is no longer the woman she was
before her illness. She’s more frail, and needs help
with walking, bathing and daily chores.
This shouldn’t
happen. All medical students are required to have clinical experiences in
pediatrics and obstetrics, even though after they graduate most will never
treat a child or deliver a baby. Yet there is no requirement for any clinical
training in geriatrics, even though patients 65 and older account for 32
percent of the average doctor’s workload in surgical care and 43 percent in
medical specialty care, and they make up 48 percent of all inpatient hospital
days. Medicare, the national health insurance for people 65 and older,
contributes more than $8 billion a year to support residency training, yet it
does not require that part of that training focus on the unique health care
needs of older adults.
Medicare
beneficiaries receive care from doctors who may not have been taught that
heart attacks in octogenarians usually present without chest pain, or that
confusion can be due to bladder infections, heart attacks or Benadryl. They
do not routinely check for memory problems, or know which community resources
can help these patients manage their conditions. They’re uncomfortable
discussing goals of care, and recommend screening tests and treatments to
patients who are not going to live long enough to reap the benefits.
I was part of a
group of doctors and medical educators who recently published in the journal
Academic Medicine a set of minimum abilities that every medical student
should demonstrate before graduating and caring for elderly patients.
Nicknamed the “don’t kill Granny” list, it includes being able to prescribe
medicines, assess patients’ ability to care for themselves, recognize
atypical presentations of common diseases, prevent falls, recognize the
hazards of hospitalization and decide on treatments based on elderly
patients’ prognosis and their personal preferences.
The 2008 Institute of Medicine report “Retooling for an
Aging America” resolved that all licensed health care professionals should be
required to demonstrate such competence in the care of older adults. But this
resolution lacks teeth. Medical resident training programs that receive
Medicare money should be required to demonstrate that their trainees are
competent in geriatric care. Medicare should finance medical training in
nursing homes. And state licensing and medical specialty boards should
require demonstration of geriatric competence for licensing and
certification.
Basic geriatric
knowledge is preventive medicine. Nurses, social workers, pharmacists and
other health care professionals should have it, too, in order to improve care
for older people. But until doctors get this basic training, we can’t even
begin to give 80-year-olds the care they need.
Rosanne M.
Leipzig, a physician, is a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/opinion/02leipzig.html
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