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It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a community effort to raise a healthy child. Creating a better environment for children that will allow them to grow up stronger and healthier is the focus of this year’s National Public Health Week.
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s Health Care Reform Panel will hold its final regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, March 30. The meeting, which will take place at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge, will mark the end of the two-year process that brought together national health care experts, state legislative and government leaders, business leaders, and a representative from each of the nine health care regions of Louisiana.
People living in 10 states, including Texas, who have health care coverage from Louisiana Medicaid or the Louisiana Children’s Health Insurance Program (LaCHIP) and who are or were enrolled in similar programs in other states as a result of being displaced by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita will no longer be covered by Louisiana Medicaid.
Louisiana has gone from last place nationwide to 48th in the 2006 Morgan Quitno State Health Care Rankings. The state improved on the majority of factors considered when assigning these rankings.
Health care providers who gave free care to thousands of uninsured patients following Hurricane Katrina will soon be reimbursed for a portion of that care. The Department of Health and Hospitals learned today that the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has made $383 million available to the state to begin reimbursing hospitals, doctors and other health care providers.
“Crisis provides opportunities for humans to exercise character. This tragic flood brought destruction to us but also hope,” said Dr. Fred Cerise, DHH Secretary, in one of the many essays on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita found in ‘Witness to Disaster.”
In December, the Department of Health and Hospitals began a campaign to increase the number of hospital workers who received an annual influenza vaccine. The immunization campaign resulted in many hospitals throughout Louisiana making bolder efforts to vaccinate their workers against this serious and potentially fatal illness. The Louisiana Hospital Association assisted DHH in the effort by sending educational materials to infectious control practitioners in member hospitals.
The workgroup formed by the Department of Health and Hospitals to make recommendations to improve long term care will meet in Covington in March.
The Department of Health and Hospitals’ Medicaid program has received a $263,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to maximize the efficiency and accuracy of enrolling and retaining eligible individuals and families in Medicaid and SCHIP in the face of less staff and more need caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Following the deactivation of Victim Identification Center in Carville, La. last week by the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, the process to identify and release human remains attributed to Hurricane Katrina will continue from Orleans Parish.
Thousands of people have incurred medical costs since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and have no way to pay these bills. Relief for these individuals is now available.