Public Health Boost Urged

              8-A Friday, April 25, 1975 THE SHREVEPORT TIMES
Dr. William H. Stewart, state health
commissioner signed the Bill of Rights
for Nonsmokers yesterday as Dr.
Bettina Hitman watched. Both were
speakers for the Louisiana Public
Health Association's meeting yester-day.
Dr. Hilman is a faculty member
of the Louisiana State University
School of Medicine in Shreveport.
(Times Photo by Ken Aclin)
Public Health Boost Urged
By Elaine King
Times Medical Writer
Progress is being made in
the public health field in
Louisiana, but areas exist that
require much more work, a
state health official said here
Thursday.
There is an enormous
amount of work to do in child
care, for example, according
to Dr. William Stewart, state
h e a l t h commissioner,
Louisiana Health and Human
Resources Administration.
Stewart was in Shreveport
yesterday afternoon to
present "The State of the
State: Report on the State
Health Program," at the 1975
Louisiana Public Health
Association's annual meeting.
On the plus side, he said,
"The immunization level in
children is something we can
be proud of" and that most of
Louisiana's residents are well
immunized.
But there are minuses, he
said.
Once or twice a week,
Stewart said, he works at
Charity Hospital in New
Orleans and when he enters
through the east admitting
room there are usually 20 to 25
people "on rollers" awaiting
treatment and a hundred
"milling around."
Caddo,
Bossier
News
"I don't understand why I
see that," he said, in a nation
that spends $100 billion a year
on health care.
Within the state there are
some budgeting problems that
were created when the state's
new constitution went into
effect Jan. 1, he noted.
The legislation is moving
toward one appropriation per
year, he said, and to get
emergency appropriations
during the year will be much
more difficult.
Before the new constitution
took effect, he said, money
from Medicaid and Medicare
went into a pocket that could
be transferred to another
program as needed. But under
the new constitution, the
money goes to the state
treasury, he said.
Care of emotionally and
mentally disturbed children
by the division is another
problem, Dr. Stewart said.
Some of the children that
were sent out of state because
Louisiana ran out of room in
its institutions are being
brought back from Texas as
Louisiana facilities permit, he
said.
There are juveniles, he said,
that need to be sent to an
institution, but juvenile
authorities have nowhere but
a state reformatory to send
them. There is a need for
diagnosis and therapy
facilities to handle such
children outside the penal
system, he said.
Louisiana doesn't have the
kind of programs that, at an
early age, would prevent such
problems. "We're dealing
with the symptoms," he said.
The cost of maintaining an
institution is enormous, he
said, and there is one
institution that cares for
children with serious
emotional disturbances that
want $3,000 per month for the
care.
The child might have to be
treated for 30-40 months and
in some cases the chance of
success might be only five per
cent, he said.