ST. BERNARD PARISH HOSPITAL PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT FOR INFO: WAYNE J.

LANDRY 504-401-3991 WAYNE.LANDRY@SBPHSD.NET -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* We are proud that the St. Bernard residents can receive emergency care and basic services at THEIR Hospital. Unlike hospitals that are owned by large corporations, the people of ST. Bernard own their hospital. Gone are the bleak times we faced after Katrina where residents were forced to go into other communities with the travel burdens at times of illness as the large corporate owned hospitals took profits and left. St. Bernardians can be proud to own and control the future of their healthcare, and not let large corporations profit from their illness. This is no surprise since we have a rich tradition in showing the world we can take care of ourselves. We can further take pride in the fact that it took a lot of dedication and hard work from the citizens of this parish to build a state of the art hospital. The original millage was passed to hire the employees in order to start facility operations thereby putting our citizens back to work in our first class hospital, not to build it. The residents stepped up to ensure the facility would begin serving the people of St. Bernard. Currently over 140 people from St. Bernard have jobs at the hospital as a result of the original millage.

At a time when healthcare costs around the country have skyrocketed and provide one of the biggest burdens to the national debt, the efficient operation of St. Bernard Hospital has postured itself to be a huge future success for its owners, the residents of St. Bernard Parish! Price Waterhouse Cooper, the premier healthcare proforma experts in the country as well as the Hammes Company both were commissioned to do a pre-opening study of St. Bernard Hospital. Both Companies concluded that it would take approximately 16.3 million dollars, and 2 ! to 3 years for the hospital to break even. The hospital broke even on a cash basis in ONE year with only 11 million dollars! This was accomplished due to the management of the hospital being extremely efficient. This success was evident as the hospital outperformed what the experts predicted. As a result of the initial success of the hospital, currently and conservatively the hospital has contributed tens of millions of dollars in annual economic impact to St. Bernard Parish. This is evident in the growth of the sales tax revenues for the Parish. This one year one time millage will allow the hospital to hire ALL the specialist it needs to become a full service hospital without the need to transfer patients out to other hospitals for services. This will allow all of us the comfort and convenience of knowing that all of our medical needs can be met right here in St. Bernard. It will also allow us to begin the two year effort to be able to perform open heart surgery here in St. Bernard.

The recruitment of the specialist will generate several hundreds of thousands of dollars after one year, and this will allow the hospital to generate the funds necessary to expand in the future.. This will allow the emergency room to be better staffed with more healthcare professionals thus reducing the amount of wait time for services. This is important since the hospital has already treated over 24,000 patients in the emergency room. The addition of the specialist will require an increase in the number of healthcare employees for support services. This will allow more money to be spent in the local economy. This will also contribute millions more of economic impact to the parish. In fact, if you look at the sales tax revenues and how they are increasing for St. Bernard, this trend will continue upward, thus eliminating the need for parish government to have to increase taxes for a very long time. This millage is not to save the hospital (assuming the affordable care act doesnt hurt it too bad). The hospital can continue to operate without it. Naturally, without it there will not be the ability to acquire all of the specialist needed to be a full service hospital, and cause years of time in order to generate funds to slowly develop the hospital into a full service facility. This millage will also allow the hospital to have a better electronic medical record for not only improved patient safety, but will make the facility more efficient and provide for a faster and more accurate billing process. The original electronic medical record system is one that was recommended by the previous management company, and it has proven to be dysfunctional.

While the hospital is working with limited funds to improve the system, with limited funds, it will take some time to get the system up to par. With the help of MedAssets handling the billing process, the billing and collection functions shall be more efficient. The original millage for the hospital was to cash flow the hospital in other words to provide the money for payroll and supplies to get the hospital open and running. This one time millage will take the hospital into the future with the complete range of medical services. This millage will provide for additional services that cannot be attained without it and will allow totality in medical treatment for all of St. Bernard. We believe the average home in St. Bernard has an assessed value somewhere between 110,000 to 150,000. For a $110,000 home it would cost $105.00. For the $150,000 home, it would cost $225.00. This is a one time cost only. Wayne J. Landry, who has certainly pushed the hardest to have the hospital built says I certainly understand if someone cannot afford this one time millage. And if they cannot, they shouldnt vote for this. If they can, then they can vote yes knowing that they will be assisting to contribute potentially in excess of 10 million a year in economic impact for St. Bernard generating more healthcare jobs, while at the same time guaranteeing that all of their medical specialty needs will be met right here in their own parish. It will strengthen the hospital and our parish. The hospital board has brought this measure for the people to decide on after exhausting all potential sources of monies to take the hospital to a complete full service facility