Young Memorial gets new home health care lab

Pity poor Susie.
She doesn’t complain, but she’s not well. She’s bed-ridden and confined to one sparsely but tastefully decorated bedroom. Cables connect her to a computer.
But Susie will get a lot of care.
That’s the name for the mannequin in the new home health care lab at South Louisiana Community College’s Young Memorial Campus. The lab came into being as a result of a partnership between SLCC and the LHC Group, a Lafayette-based provider of home health care services.
Leaders from both were at Young Memorial on Tuesday to cut the ribbon for the new lab.
The labs offer students in nursing and allied health programs the chance to learn in a setting that prepares them for work in home health care, a fast-growing segment of the industry.
Lana Fontenot, SLCC’s director of development and institutional advancement, said the lab offers students “the closest interaction they can have without touching a human patient. …
“Care is moving more and more into the home,” Fontenot said. “It’s not just LHC.”
The gathering for Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting brought together officials from SLCC, including Chancellor Vincent June, LHC Regional Vice President Spencer Thibodeaux, Parish Councilman Mark Duhon and Mata Tellman of the St. Mary Chamber, who wielded the big scissors that cut the ribbon.
“I’m grateful for the people in this room,” June said, speaking in a classroom near Susie’s cramped quarters, “and the partnership with LHC.”
Fontenot said the process of creating the labs began five years ago with an empty room at SLCC’s Lafayette campus. Then-Chancellor Natalie Harder challenged Mark Willis, senior vice president at LHC, to envision a use for the room.
Harder suggested the labs, Fontenot said. The empty room in Lafayette became a prototype lab.
“What LHC wanted us to do was build home health care labs for all our rural campuses that offer [health care and allied professions],” Fontenot said.
The new offering at Young Memorial adds to a list of home health care labs in Abbeville and Ville Platte SLCC campuses, and others will soon be opened at Crowley, St. Martinville and Opelousas.