By Jack Richards
BATON ROUGE — The Department of Health and Hospitals is preparing to cut tens of millions of dollars from hospitals around the state, potentially shuttering hospitals in Houma, Monroe, Alexandria, Lake Charles and Bogalusa, according to the agency’s undersecretary, Jeff Reynolds.
The final decision, he told the House Appropriations subcommittee on Health and Human Services, will come soon from Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, but Reynolds outlined worst-case scenarios where cuts to public-private partner hospitals could force them to terminate their contracts, leaving people without healthcare in their area — at least on a temporary basis.
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 