Confederate Memorial Seeks $15 Million for Improvements

              Shreveport Journal
CITY EDITION
FOUR SECTIONS
36 PAGES
Thursday Afternoon
Jan. 20, 1972
Vol. 78 Price 10 Cents
Confederate Memorial Seeks
$15 Million for Improvements
By MERRILEE LEATHERMAX
and CARL LIBERTO
Journal Staff Writers
Confederate Memorial Med-ical
Center outlined a pro-posed
$15 million 5-year plan
of renovation and moderniza-tion
today and sought the sup-
Louisiana Medical
Society (LMS) to secure state
matching funds during the
coming legislative session.
Dr. Edgar Gallway, CMMC
director, in presenting the
Confederate program before
the I.MS board, said that he
will present a S1334 million
budget before financial com-mittees
in Baton Rouge to-morrow.
IN ASKING for the board's
support he said that funds
have not been given to the
local hospital for major im-provements
sinre its opening.
"We've got to have the
money." said Galloway," to
u p g r a d e the staff and to
rennovate the hospital in
order to bring it where it
should be if it is to really be a
op. accredited teaching facili-ty."
Dr. Ga 1 1 o w a y said that
because of deficits in mainte-nance
and physical and func-tional
obsolesence the hospital
is in danger of losing its
accreditatioa and several clin-ical
services and is threatened
with the loss of approval of
intern and r e s i d e n c y pro-grams.
DR. EDGAR HULL, dean of
the LSU Medical School in
Shreveport, cited the fact that
Confederate is the principal
teaching hospital of the med
school, and said that loss of
approval of residency pro-gram
or of accreditation of
the hospital would have a
grave effect upon the accrecdi-tation
of the medical school
which will be evaluated for
full accreditation in the fall of
1972.
THE PLAN calls for federal
and state matching funds, but
Dr. Galloway said that some
work must be undertaken by
the state at once and funded
only from state monies be-cause
some of the work if not
eligible for federal participa-tion
He said that $6,230,000 would
be needed from state funds
for the 1972-1973 fiscal year
for the five-year plan.
Dr. Hull pointed out that
normal wear and tear lias
never been dealt with day to
day because of the lack of
funds. As a result. physical
obsolescence has been cummula-tive
over the 20 years exist-ence
of the present structure.
HULL,. WHO pointed out
that the situation has become
extremely critical because of
the fact that Shreveport has
now a medical school, said
that the present facility is not
in conformity with the Life
Safety Code, there is a physi-cal
deterioration of the build-ing
itself, of the plumbing and
heating systems, there is a
lack of air conditioning in the
hospital wards and obsolete
air conditioning in some areas
and inadequate electrical pow-er
and lack of a d e q u o t e
emergency generators.
"It has been proven."
the m
any hospital affiliated with a
medical school needs 30 to 35
per cent more space than the
average facility."
Functional obsolescence in
Confederate, he said, is a
serious deficit.
IMPROVEMENTS needed
in this area include an ur-gently
needed rearrangement
and remodeling of existing
space to met the changing de-'
mands for medical service;
the hospital originally was not
designed for undergraduate
teaching and the teaching
mission in intern, resident.
nurse and technologist train-ing.
These have :ncreased
with the addition of a medical
school and the facilities re-quired
have taken on a new
nature.
Hull also said that labora-tores
need to be greatly
expanded and better equipped
in order to provide up-to-date
services.
In the needs of particular
clinical services, Hull said,
are those of medicine and the
medical snecialties. These in-clude
an intensive care unit of
at least 12 beds for coronary
and other emergent condi-tions;
inhalation therapy and
See HOSPITAL, Page 10-A