DDD Chairman Dr. Byron Harrell and President & CEO Kurt Weigle's letter to Governor Bobby Jindal regarding the proposed LSU/VA hospitals

April 9,2008

Dear Governor Jindal:

Thank you for your strong leadership in the first two special sessions of the Louisiana Legislature. You have helped establish a new culture of the highest ethical standards and fiscal responsibility. Now, you have the opportunity to re-affirm your support for the construction of a new LSU academic medical center recently approved by the Legislature. By so doing, you can quell rampant rumors of its demise and ensure that this critically important project moves forward in the current legislative session. As encouragement, we offer the following.

It will be the future centerpiece of our downtown economy. An academic medical center in downtown New Orleans will produce a massive economic impact from thousands of highpaying jobs. With it, we can build new industries in such fields as biotechnology, research, pharmacology, and others. The new LSU medical center will also cement an important partnership with the Veterans Administration, and a vibrant new sector, lasting generations, will spring from these two investments. The resulting rebound will be similar to the miracle of the University of Alabama in downtown Birmingham. If we fail to seize this moment, our citizens will continue to vote with their feet and seek advanced care in Houston, Atlanta, or Birmingham with devastating long-term implications for our community and south Louisiana.

It will ensure the medical future of the entire southern portion of the state. A large majority of LSU medical school graduates and residents practice in Louisiana. They have formed the backbone of our medical community and must be re-established to avoid becoming a national medical backwater attractive only to marginal teachers and students. We have a chance to create a world-class medical training venue that will attract and retain the best and brightest.

It will serve as a critical medical safety net. We do not want to return to a faltering system of public medical services. The opportunity is in our grasp to establish a way to care for the weakest among us with compassion and dignity whether they are uninsured or unemployed or unable to work. Our private hospitals are hemorrhaging from uncompensated services and we support immediate financial relief, but, in the long term, New Orleans cannot prosper without a medical safety net facility.

We applaud your thoughtful and fiscally conservative approach to this complex issue. We are confident that, after careful reflection, you will find the recommendations of the independent study by the Adams Consulting Group conducted by the Louisiana Office of Facility Planning and Control to be thorough, accurate, and timely. It will require courage to move forward against entrenched and competing interests, but your approval and vigorous support of the new LSU academic medical center in downtown New Orleans is essential or we will squander this moment. We hope you will join us in this endeavor; please do not hesitate to call on us for any assistance that you may require.

Respectfully,

Dr. Byron Harrell                 Kurt M. Weigle
Chairman                           President & CEO