Today, a full 41 organizations joined together to announce a call on civic and state leaders to transparently evaluate the competing hospital proposals in a public setting.
More specifically:
ORGANIZATIONS IN THE COALITION ARE CALLING FOR:
1. Governor Jindal to order an independent, comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the two hospital plans.
2. The City Planning Commission and the City Council to hold public hearings on these critical planning issues.
3. The City Planning Commission and the City Council to include the hospitals in the current master-planning process.
There is no reason not to rally around this effort. Whether you're pro-Charity, pro-LSU, or agnostic, everybody can agree that the time has come to honestly compare the plans side-by-side.
It was heartening to see a diverse group of community organizations come together for something constructive given the gridlock that has become characteristic of pretty much all other civic issues.
[These may take a few seconds to load for you. Also, I apologize for the imperfections; I only had a regular digital camera to work with, people.]
Check out Broadmoor's LaToya Cantrell:
Press Conference 3/25 from Eli Ackerman on Vimeo.
And Charles Allen from Holy Cross:
Press Conference 3/25 from Eli Ackerman on Vimeo.
Here's a list of those organizations and I know that more have joined on since:
●American Planning Association
●Broadmoor Improvement Association
●Charity Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association
●Foundation for Historical Louisiana
●New Orleans Committee to Reopen Charity Hospital
●Coliseum Square Association
●Doctors for Charity Hospital
●National Trust for Historic Preservation
●Squandered Heritage
●Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association
●Smart Growth for Louisiana
●Preservation Resource Center
●Louisiana ACORN
●Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association
●Louisiana Landmarks Society
●GNO Affordable Housing Action Center
●Holy Cross Neighborhood Association
●New Creation Christian Church
●Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation
●Lower Mid-City Residents and Business Owners Affected by the LSU/VA Hospitals
●The Renaissance Project
●Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents and Associates
●Southern Christian Leadership Conference Louisiana Women’s Division
●French Quarter Citizens, Inc.
●Lantern Light Inc.
●Irish Channel Neighborhood Association
●Louisiana Justice Institute
●Lafayette Square Association
●Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development
●Mid-City Neighborhood Organization
●New Orleans Pax Christi
●Partners for Livable Communities
●C3/Hands Off Iberville
●Phoenix of New Orleans
●Restaurant Opportunity Center of New Orleans
●Social Justice Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Church
●The Townscape Institute
●The Urban Conservancy
●United Teachers of New Orleans
●Advocates for Environmental Human Rights
●Historic Faubourg Treme Association
Black, brown, and white. Uptown and downtown. Religious groups and neighborhood organizations. Professional associations and organized labor. Preservationists and activists.
It's all here.
One of the other speakers today was Dr. Sissy Sartor M.D, who also got a letter to the editor published in the Times-Picayune:
Re: "Unhealthy attitude infects LSU, " Other Opinions, March 20. Does LSU really care about returning health care to the New Orleans area? Unfortunately, I fear the answer may be no.
As James Gill so succinctly suggests, LSU officials have viewed the aftermath of Katrina as an opportunity to push forward their desire for domination in the local medical school internecine struggles. This desire seems to have suspended their good judgment in favor of propaganda and obfuscation.
At a health care forum in Jefferson Parish Wednesday night, Alan Levine, Secretary of Health and Hospitals said in surprised exasperation that we are no further along with this issue than three years ago.
Let me make a radical suggestion: Remove LSU from the management of the state charity hospital system and put it in the hands of a nonpartisan team.
We need a team that really cares about health care, not the money, not the power, but health care provision for those who so dearly need it.
Sissy Sartor, M.D.
New Orleans
Boom!
Now if we could just get our City Council and our CPC on board...
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