Moss Regional Medical Center is ''stuck in a holding pattern'' as Gov. Bobby Jindal administration’s plan to strip $329 million from the LSU Health Care System. (Rick Hickman / Special to the American Press)
Administrator says Moss Regional ‘treading water’
Last Modified: Friday, July 27, 2012 2:39 PM
By Natalie Stewart / American Press
W.O. Moss Regional Medical Center is “stuck in a holding pattern” after the Jindal administration’s plan to strip $329 million from the LSU Health Care System.Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration recently announced a $523 million cut to health care — two-thirds of which the LSU system will absorb for the fiscal year, which began July 1.
Jimmy Pottorff, the hospital’s interim administrator, said the LSU Health Care System’s board will make recommendations as to where cuts will be absorbed.
Pottorff said the board is meeting this week and that he expects its decision to filter down to the hospitals in the system soon.
“We’re treading water,” he said. “We have no idea what is going to happen. We don’t have anything concrete yet.”
Pottorff said the charity hospital sees more than 120,000 outpatients a year — 65 percent of whom are uninsured.
“I don’t know where these people will go because they will end up having to choose between the basic necessities — they need food, water, shelter — so health care will be made last for some of them,” he said.
“I don’t know where these people are going to go to get the care they deserve in Southwest Louisiana, and that keeps me up at night.”
Pottorff said the hospital averages about 185 in-patient surgeries monthly.
“I think our legislators see the importance we have in the population that we serve,” he said.
Dr. Mohammed Sarwar, the hospital’s medical director, said that despite cuts made in the previous year and the announcement of additional cuts this year, doctors at Moss Regional are “very devoted.”
“We don’t talk about the cuts, and doctors are thinking of moving or changing their jobs because of the uncertainty at this time,” he said. “This is our home. If you look at some of the other hospitals, they’re short on doctors.”
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