Jackson to Ask Edwards to Name 2 Blacks to CMMC Board Seats

              Jackson to Ask Edwards to Name
2 Blacks to CMMC Board Seats
Newly elected black legislator Alp-honse
Jackson Jr. said in an interview
that he will ask incoming Gov. Edwin
Edwards to include at least two blacks in
the five members allotted Caddo Parish
on the board of directors of Confederate
Memorial Medical Center.
As far as could be determined this
would be the first time in the history of
the institution for blacks to serve on the
board. The institution serves mostly
members of the black race.
The board is made up, by law, of 13
members, appointed by the governor to
serve a term concurrent with that of the
governor.
Five Caddo Members
The members of the board include
five from Caddo Parish, and one each
from the parishes of Bienville, Bossier,
C1 a i b o r n e, DeSoto, Red River and
Webster parishes.
The chairman of the board, who is
presently T. B. Lanford, is appointed
from a panel of three names submitted
by the council member of the 4th
Congressional District of the Louisiana
State Medical Society.
J. Woodfin Wilson, a Shreveport
internist, is the 4th Congressional Dis-trict
council member for the LMS.
Wilson said he has not decided on a
list, and "(I) don't know when I am
supposed to have it in."
He said he doesn't know whether or
not a black will be included on the list of
candidates for chairman.
"I will search for a qualified man and
if he happens to be black, that will be
plum good," Wilson said, adding that
race will be no deterrent for the
nomination.
"Black, white, incumbent, outcum-bent
. . . it doesn't make any differ-ence,"
the LMS official said.
The vice chairman of the board is
selected by a vote of the members. The
present vice chairman is Tony Pernici,
Shreveport businessman.
Other board members from Caddo
Parish are Dr. Charles L. Black, Gen.
Spencer Hardy, Dr. A. J. Mullen, Dr.
James W. Tucker.
Representing other parishes are Dr.
J. D. Huckaby,. Red River; Roger Sil-ver,
DeSoto; Dr. S. A. Tatum, Claiborne;
W. H. (Tommy) Thompson, Webster;
Jack Clayton, Bossier.
There is no one presently on the board
representing Bienville parish and one
Caddo representative who died has not
been replaced.
The director of the hospital is selected
and employed by the Confederate board
of directors, according to the 1963 board
by-laws which are now being revised.
The by-laws state that the director
should be "preferably a trained hospital
administrator, who shall be a medical
doctor. . ."
Dr. Edgar Galloway now serves as
the director, a position he has held since
1940, except for short intervals.
There has been some conjecture that
Galloway, who will be 78 in May, might
retire but he refused to comment one
way or the other on the matter.
"I can't comment on what might
happen in the future," Galloway said,
when asked if he would accept another
term as head of the sprawling institution.
Dr. Marion Hargrove Jr., head of
the medical school's Department of
Medicine, has been mentioned as a
possible successor to Galloway.
Hargrove said he was "surprised and
very flattered," but would not discuss
the matter further.
Confederate has gained importance in
the last few years as. the teaching
hospital of Louisiana State University
Medical School at Shreveport.
There has been rumor that the
hospital will eventually become a univer-sity
hospital, controlled by the medical
school, but Dr. Edgar Hull, dean of the
school, denied that, "We have no plans
at all to do that."
"I have no comment. There is no
reason, really, to talk about it," Hull
added.
In referring to the possible appoint-ment
of blacks on the board, which,
according to law, directs and manages
the medical center, Jackson said, "I
think if we are going to solve some
problems . . . related to the operation of
the hospital, we have to have blacks on
the board."
Admission Room Problems
Asked to elaborate on "some prob-lems,"
Jackson said he is concerned
about the operation of the whole hospital,
but inititally wants to "zero in on the
admissions room."
Waiting time in the admitting room,
the legislator said, is a minimum of four
hours "and it can be up to eight hours or
10."
"It appears to me we've got that
department operating independently of
the total operation out there," he added.
"The doctors move expeditiously once
they see the patient. The problem is
getting the patient in to see the doctor."
Jackson said he feels that the workers
in the admitting room "are Civil Service
e m p l o y e s of long tenure who feel
insulated."
Patients, he said, are "unheard and
unanswered. . ."
He said he hopes to have a conference
as soon as one can be arranged with
Lanford, and also with state officials in
Baton Rouge.
Black employes, he said "face gross
discrimination."
They are not given higher positions,
there is a lack of blacks in the upper
echelon of the hospital work force, and
there is "a lack of any sensitivity on the
part of the immediate supervisors to the
civil and human rights of blacks,"
Jackson charged.
"They are not respected as full
citizens," he added, explaining that
supervisors refuse to use courtesy title
(mister, miss, Mrs.) "and afford them
simple courtesies."
And, added Jackson, who will be
sworn in when the legislature opens in
May, once blacks are hired they are
"locked in" to a position, and are not
given entry to higher-level jobs up the
line of progress.
"We think," he said, "this is In
violation of the rules and regulations of
the Civil Service Commission and in
violation of rules consistent with Civil
Rights laws extended by Congress for
state and municipal employes."
Jackson said he and Arthur Thomp-son,
who is with the law firm of Jesse N.
Stone Jr., dean of the Southern Universi-ty
Law School, will present to the Board
of Directors at its Tuesday session a list
of 12 grievances drawn up by Confeder-ate
employes.
Jackson would not identify the em-ployes
at this time. He said the list will
also be mailed to the Civil Service
Commission, the Department of Hospi-tals
and Galloway.
Many Demands Listed
The petition lists a wide variety of
demands including some areas over
which the board has no control, such as
higher rates to pay for present job
classification.
The petition requests that "all em-ployes
be treated equally regardless of
race, or sex."
Two specific "acts of discrimination"
which it asks "be halted immediately"
are: 1. "That black e m p l o y e s be
accorded the same privileges of obtain-ing
parking permits and/or stickers as is
now accorded to white employes." 2.
"That black employes be accorded the
same privileges of leaving the hospital
p r e m i s e s during lunch and dinner
breaks, as is now accorded to white
employes."
The petition also seeks a job descrip-tion
for "nurses aids" written "and/or j
enforced so as to preclude said employes
from being required to do janitorial work
or any other work that is not generally
classified as 'nurses aid' duties."
Among other requests were represen-tation
on the hospital's decision-making
bodies, and that procedure be established
so that "legitimate c o m p l a i n t s and
grievances may be heard and resolved."