LDH News

The Louisiana Departments of Health, Environmental Quality and Wildlife and Fisheries today issued a series of fish consumption advisories for nine bodies of water. These most recent advisories include one new warning and updates to eight previously issued warnings.

Secretary of Health Dr. Rebekah Gee announced the state had finally done away with the waiting list and ensured that every eligible person who was in line asking for help from the state had received some form of assistance.

Yesterday, a child in Texas and one in Connecticut died after overheating in a hot car. These deaths followed similar incidents from earlier in the week where a 17-month-old child died in Florida after the boy was left unattended in a parked car, and in Louisiana where emergency responders had to break a window of a parked car to rescue a child who had also been left alone.

The Louisiana Department of Health today reported the first human cases of West Nile virus for this year. These initial cases are listed in this year’s first weekly Arboviral Report and shows six WNV infections, distributed as follows: • Three cases of neuroinvasive disease: one case each in DeSoto, St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes, • Two cases of fever: one each in East Baton Rouge and Ouachita parishes, and • One asymptomatic case in East Baton Rouge Parish that was diagnosed because of a blood donation.

Yesterday, the Louisiana Department of Health issued a closure order to Dupont Fish Market, located at 161 N. Market St. in Shreveport, after health inspections found multiple critical violations.

Through an innovative approach to providing services to people with developmental disabilities, the Louisiana Department of Health is effectively ending the 25-year-old waiting list for specialized home and community-based services. This new plan prioritizes the needs of people instead of the date they applied for services.

The Louisiana Department of Health is seeking public input on key strategies to address Louisiana’s opioid epidemic. Over the past month, the Department of Health, in collaboration with local human services agencies, has held public meetings around the state.

The Louisiana Department of Health today released information regarding chloroprene emissions at the Denka Elastomer plant in LaPlace to officials in St. John the Baptist Parish. The assessment was prepared at the request of the Parish Council for the St. John School Board. 

The Louisiana Department of Health’s Office of Public Health awarded an $800,000 loan to the Southeast Waterworks District No. 2 of Vermilion Parish through the State’s Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund. The low-interest subsidized loan will help improve the District’s Water System.

Open enrollment for Healthy Louisiana begins June 15, 2018, and runs through July 31, 2018. During this time, people enrolled in Medicaid’s managed care program, known as Healthy Louisiana, have the opportunity to choose a new health plan or do nothing and remain with their current plan. There are five health plans that deliver physical and behavioral health care services to the nearly 1.5 million Healthy Louisiana enrollees.