More great health care news for New Orleans thaks to them Catholics!

Daughters of Charity to open medical clinic in eastern New Orleans

Published: Monday, April 09, 2012

By Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune

Nearly two decades after leaving the high-profile hospital care that shaped its image for more than 150 years, the Daughters of Charity will soon expand into eastern New Orleans, continuing its reinvention as providers of primary health care to lower-income families and individuals. Partnered with the city, the Daughters will open a new clinic in May — their fourth — in the professional building near the former Methodist Hospital on Read Boulevard, said Michael Green, president and chief executive officer of Daughters of Charity Services of New Orleans.

Enlarge Times-Picayune Staff Photo from Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul West Central Province Sister Stanislaus Malone, director of the sister's division of Charity Hospital School of Nursing, with nurses. Daughters of Charity have a history of health care in New Orleans gallery (7 photos)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Designed as one-stop centers, or “medical homes” in the industry jargon, the clinics combine the services of doctors, dentists, optometrists, pharmacists and counselors.
They also stress patient education and preventive care.
Late next year, the Daughters will open a permanent clinic on the site, with $2 million of the $5 million capital investment provided by a public board, Orleans Parish Hospital District A.
Operating on philanthropy from the Daughters of Charity’s own foundation, with other private and public grants, plus the usual Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements, the centers are designed to serve the poor, said Sister Bonnie Huffman, a nun, registered nurse and now a vice president of the order’s health ministry.
Like other members of the order, Huffman, 64, took the usual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, plus a vow unique to the order founded by St. Vincent de Paul: service to the poor.
“He taught us, and we are trained to this — that we are servants of the poor,” said Huffman.
“The poor are our lords and masters. That’s what he said.”
‘We turn no one away’
In New Orleans, about 29 percent of the population is without medical insurance, Green said.
Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, ends when a single mother of two makes more than $19,090 a year, the ministry said.
So on any given day, the clinics are reimbursed by Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance for fewer than four of every 10 patients they see, according to figures supplied by the ministry.
Another 40 percent of patients are covered by funds from a $90 million post-Katrina grant to New Orleans called the Greater New Orleans Community Health Connection.
About half of that grant has been exhausted, Green said. Administrators hope it will bridge them to a more permanent platform under health care reform, although the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on its constitutionality.
The remaining fifth of the clinics’ patients are medically naked. They are billed on a sliding scale according to their ability to pay.
“We turn no one away,” Green said.
All told, reimbursements of various kinds provide only about 75 percent of the clinics’ income, according its figures.
The rest comes from grants and donations — the largest part from funds in the Daughters’ national health system, banked from the 1992 sale of their New Orleans hospital, Hotel Dieu, as well as the sale of hospitals in El Paso and St. Louis, Huffman said.
The clinics’ doctors include specialists like pediatricians and obstetricians, although the ministry’s Catholic character means the clinics’ doctors and pharmacies do not provide artificial contraception.
“It’s OK with us that our providers discuss contraceptive needs with individuals,” Huffman said. “We believe that’s an individual decision.”
The clinics’ doctors and staff “probably struggle” with the prohibition against prescribing, she said. “But I think they believe in the broader ministry we have here, and want to participate in that.”
A history of helping
The order’s roots in New Orleans reach back to 1834, when they staffed Charity Hospital. In 1859, they founded their own, Hotel Dieu, where their history reports that their first patient was a slave named Moses.
In the early 20th century, their ranks thick with members, Daughters of Charity were closely identified with care at Charity. One of their number, Sister Stanislaus Malone, became a legendary Charity figure over a 60-year career ending in 1944.
But the nuns’ ranks dwindled and their presence all but disappeared at Charity.
In 1992 the order sold Hotel Dieu to the state, which needed it to bolster operations at Charity.
The order went into a period of self-examination.
Four years later, backed by funds from its hospital sales, the Daughters emerged with a new medical mission: delivering high-quality, community-based primary health care to low-income individuals and families.
In 1996, the order opened a clinic in New Orleans in the old Carrollton Shopping Center.
Katrina destroyed it, as well as the shopping center, which never returned.
After retreating into a temporary office on North Causeway Boulevard, which still functions, the order expanded to found neighborhood clinics in the 3200 block of South Carrollton and at the former St. Cecilia church and school in the Upper Ninth Ward.
Woman on a mission
Eastern New Orleans will be the order’s fourth clinic.
Today the Daughters’ ministry of about 125 employees is run by laypeople. The order has only 15 active nuns in the area, said Huffman. Only two or three work directly or indirectly with patients.
But the order’s national ministry, Ascension Health System, puts key executives through two-year formation programs designed to instill the Daughters’ particular values.
And locally, Huffman’s own job is vice president for mission.
“I’m the point person to say that everything we do, every decision we make, we consider the mission” to the poor, she said.
Bruce Nolan can be reached at bnolan@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3344.