re: RE: an ER in NBR - It appears the numbers are finally coming to light...

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I may be a lot of things, but above all, I am a data man. I try to base most of my decisions on data. Data from people who have nothing to do with the situation I’m addressing. That’s why when I read a recent editorials by Stephanie Riegel and Rolfe McCollister of the Baton Rouge Business Report I was a little taken back. Number one, Stephanie nor Rolfe have yet to reach out to sit down with members of the #NBRNow Blue Ribbon Commission but on more than one occasion both she and her boss have referenced the plans presented without the data to back it up.

Even more troubling is Stephanie has not even sent a reporter to the community meetings concerning the ER at Champion in north Baton Rouge, therefore the only information she has received on the proposal is what she has read in The Advocate, Baton Rouge’s other slanted mainstream media outlet. So I had to ask myself, what is the reason for her to care? Well it’s simple Our Lady of the Lake and Baton Rouge General spend thousands of dollars in advertising with the Baton Rouge Business Report. It makes sense for her to speak up for them.

It is amazing that both Stephanie and her boss Rolfe decided to write about healthcare in north Baton Rouge from a limited perspective, yet they are considered credible. Why? Is it because they are white? Is it because their officers are in south Baton Rouge? Is it because they are well connected? None of these things make them experts.

One of the critical things that both Stephanie and Rolfe failed to mention in their editorials is that sending all the patients south helps make traffic worse in Baton Rouge. They also failed to mention that with the closure of the ER at Baton Rouge General and the hospital at Earl K. Long we have over-burdened the hospitals in south Baton Rouge. I sat in a room full of hospital executives a few weeks ago. Their comments were “our doctors are fatigued.” This is a result of putting the burden on them of treating all of East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, and much of the surrounding parishes. Those parishes have opened small facilities to help them treat patients in the same manner north Baton Rouge has suggested.

Stephanie and Rolfe also failed to mention that Baton Rouge doesn’t have the correct number of ambulances for its population. EMS needs more transport vehicles. As a result residents who live further away from emergency care are at a disadvantage.

The critical point is, opening an ER in north Baton Rouge is in large part to relieve the pressure on the facilities in south Baton Rouge so that the quality of patient care improves. So, while trauma’s may be transported to facilities in south Baton Rouge, every emergency won’t have to go south. Not to mention, the majority of ER visits are not brought via EMS, it is from walk in traffic. Having an ER in north Baton Rouge to relieve the already fatigued doctors at the medical facilities in south Baton Rouge helps to increase the quality of care patients receive. This is about lives and helping human beings. When I read the Business Report I question the humanity of its leadership often.

Rolfe questioned what healthcare experience I have. Well Rolfe, I was the supervisor of patient transport at Our Lady of the Lake right before they built the new tower. I helped oversee the restructure of the department to improve the quality of care patients received through the patient transport department. My job was to supervise a staff of 75 people at Our Lady of the Lake daily to move patients from the ER to patient rooms upstairs. To get patients from their rooms to testing and surgery. To help expedite discharges of patients so the emergency department of the hospital could clear its lobby. So Rolfe, I may not be clinical, but I have perspective that you don’t. I know what it looks like in that emergency room when they are slammed with patients, because it was my job to help them clear the emergency room. You speak continuously to promote Charter Schools, I don’t know that you’ve ever taught black children or raised any. Yet you continue to interject yourself into that conversation. You’re not an expert, but you have thoughts on it, to which no one has discredited because you’re not an educator. My thoughts may not be from a clinical perspective, but I have labored in the healthcare sector, have you taught school?

As a result of my time at Our Lady of the Lake, I understand first hand that you can’t close two emergency rooms and send everyone to facilities further away, and maintain the same level of care that existed when people had more options.

Above all else, I hear the stories of people like Kenya Jarman who went to Our Lady of the Lake just last week. She said she waited 4 hours in the emergency room and never saw a doctor. I know the story of my father, who went to Baton Rouge General Bluebonnet ER, he was in pain and waiting in the ER for hours. When he couldn’t take the pain any longer he at the age of 72 laid on the cold hard floor of the emergency room lobby to try and relieve his pain of sitting and standing while he had back problems, before finally being helped.

Rolfe tried to say that we in north Baton Rouge believe because we pay taxes that we should just get what we are asking for. Well let me put that into perspective as well. North Baton Rouge residents pay taxes, yet we do not get our fair share of the resources that we pay into. Thousands of people in north Baton Rouge pay property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, and more. Yet, when dollars are spent by the state and the local government, north Baton Rouge is last and least. I didn’t see the Business Report cover the fact that East Baton Rouge Parish spent $850 million on the mayor’s greenlight program and north Baton Rouge only got $45 million of those dollars.

So while both Rolfe and Stephanie call it playing the “race card” I am simply stating the facts that there is inequity in our community. Let me not mention how black businesses get less than 1% of the contracts given out to do the work by local and state government. What if the tables were turned? What if black people got 99% of the millions in contracts the city and state give out, would you believe that was fair Rolfe? It is only called playing the race card to distract people from the real truth that Baton Rouge isn’t a progressive city. It is a network of good ol boys and girls that want to keep other communities stuck at go.

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