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November 5, 2007 - New Orleans City Business
Sister Act
By Richard A. Webster
The Daughters of Charity and Ascension Health will open a new health clinic in 10 months for the Bywater and Ninth Ward neighborhoods.
Laura Kaiser, president of non-acute care operations for Ascension Health, said the $750,000 facility will be located in a now-vacant school building next to St. Cecilia’s Church, 4201 N. Rampart St.
The clinic will be a vanguard of converting New Orleans primary healthy care from hospital emergency rooms to neighborhood health centers.
“This is the new model,” Kaiser said. “It’s accessible and provides the means by which folks can get care in their own communities.”
The previous primary health care clinic operated by Daughters of Charity on Carrollton Avenue was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. Catholic Charities offered Daughters of Charity temporary space for its clinic at St. Cecilia’s Church on Rampart Street after the storm.
Catholic Charities runs the Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly at the same location. The national PACE program opened its New Orleans center Sept. 1.
Gordon Wadge, president of Catholic Charities of New Orleans, said they renovated the St. Cecilia church and rectory before the storm and planned to open PACE in September 2005 but the hurricane pushed back plans two years. They allowed Daughters of Charity to run their clinic out of the location with the agreement they would eventually be able to move into the adjacent school building.
The Daughters of Charity have treated more than 14,000 people in the two years they’ve operated out of St. Cecilia’s.
Wadge said the permanent clinic in the renovated school will improve the quality of life in nearby communities.
“All of us as a country are moving away from the hospital as the primary deliverer of services to neighborhood-based primary care clinics so you don’t have to go to the emergency room for strep throat,” Wadge said. “That was the problem Charity Hospital had pre-Katrina. The movement nationwide is to establish more of these full-dimensional clinics in neighborhoods and prevent medical problems from becoming severe. If you can be treated for diabetes or hypertension at a community clinic, chances are you won’t show up at the hospital emergency room needing an amputation because of diabetes circulation problems.”
Kaiser is working with the city to secure permits to renovate the St. Cecilia school and is selecting an architect. She said the clinic will have nine exam rooms and space to expand. Ascension Health also plans to open another clinic on Carrollton Avenue to replace the one lost during the storm.
Most patients treated at the Daughters of Charity health centers are indigent and uninsured.
Sister Ellen Kron, board chairwoman for Daughters of Charity Service of New Orleans, said turning the school into a permanent clinic is a “concrete demonstration of our commitment to the people of New Orleans.”
Daughters of Charity is part of a coalition of neighborhood clinics formed after the storm to fill the vacuum created by the loss of Charity Hospital.
Dr. Donald Erwin, president of the St. Thomas Community Health Center, a member of the coalition, said construction of a new Charity Hospital may not occur before 2015 and responsibility for caring for the indigent will fall on neighborhood clinics.
“I came out of retirement for this,” Erwin said. “While big plans for a new hospital are being developed, not much is happening for the people stuck without insurance, and that number exploded when people lost their jobs. Everybody wants to try something other than using the emergency room as your primary care physicians and now’s the time.”
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