Karen Gadbois co-founded The Lens. She now covers New Orleans government issues and writes about land use. With television reporter Lee Zurik she exposed widespread misuse of city recovery funds and led... More by Karen Gadbois
LSU VA
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Yes, Governor Jindal is correct that studies exist which support and promote the Regional Planning Commission’s preferred footprint. But why does this supposed ethics reformer not question who commissioned and generated those reports?
LSU has a long history of acquiring real estate only to have it underutilized or undeveloped. Just look around the area where the LSUHSC stands and where University Hospital was built after the original Hotel Dieu was torn down. You are looking at about 40 years of commercial blight, unfulfilled promises and paving, my friends. None of those things save human lives.
With all the focus on Big Charity, there seems to have been little attention paid to the other hospital to be replaced. At public meetings, all the VA ever told citizens was that re-use of the old VA hospital building was off the table. No further explanation was offered. Neither was it ever explained why the hospitals could not be built on vacant lands by the existing LSUHSC.
These are questions which need to be honestly explored and answered before expropriation proceeds and before any more wrecking balls swing.
You’re all right. They should have never torn down the old Hotel Dieu. It could have easily been retrofitted to provide the utmost in modern health care.