By LEONARD GRAY

LULING – St. Charles Parish leaders recently joined with state health officials to break ground for a $1.3 million parish health unit.

Called “the newest and most innovative health unit in the state,” according to Madeline McAndrews, assistant secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, the new unit is six times the size of the current location and is due to open summer 2003.

DHH Secretary David W. Hood likewise said the new health center would “usher in a new dawn” in local health care, and recognized the determination of St. Charles Parish Hospital administrator Fred Martinez, who pushed for the joint venture with the state.

In summer 2000, Hood said DHH was faced with the reality that several parish health units would have to be closed, among them the St. Charles Parish site. Martinez contacted Linda Welch, of the Rural Hospital Coalition, to seek a way to save the health unit through a joint venture, providing the traditional preventative health services the unit provides, as well as primary care services, usually met by the hospital.

McAndrews said this placed the parish at running the engine of the train into the future of Louisiana health care. She added Louisiana is usually placed at the bottom of states nationally in health care services but with ventures such as this, Louisiana will move up.

“It must be done here at the community level,” McAndrews said.

During the ceremony, St. Charles Parish President Albert Laque thanked the voters for approving the proposition election held July 2000.

Architect for the health unit project is Joseph B. Caillouet of Thibodaux, and construction contractor for the 310-day project is Lamar Contractors Inc. of Kenner, which bid $1,315,800 for the job, which was approved by the parish council at the March 25 meeting.

Laque also thanked parish council members Brian Fabre and Clayton “Snookie” Faucheux for their backing and support of the project.

“This will be the first health unit in the state to be built from the ground up,” Laque said. The current health unit is in a rented office space a few blocks from the site of the new health unit at 843 Milling Ave.

“I’m excited to be on the cutting edge of health units in Louisiana,” Fabre responded.

Martinez added, “The taxpayers are going to get more bang for their tax dollars.”

The present health unit, at 201 Post Drive, has long been the target of parish grand juries, complaining about its overcrowded, inadequate conditions.

The new health unit will expand from the 2,000-square-foot facility to a 12,000-square-foot facility.