Guest column: Senator defends wellness center, hazard pay for hospital

Since the beginning of my tenure in the State Senate in 2012, my record consistently shows a support for identifying resources that provide and expand quality healthcare services both in District 21 and across Louisiana. During countless hearings as a member of the Senate’s Health and Welfare Committee, I gained intimate knowledge of the challenges facing our state’s healthcare system. One thing that always stood out was just how difficult it is for small, rural hospitals to access funding sources to meet the healthcare needs of the people they serve.
In 2018, I was honored to be appointed to the Board of Commissioners of Franklin Foundation Hospital (FFH). Its hospital service district serves the area where I live in western St. Mary Parish, and I hope that some of the things that I have learned at the state level and the contacts that I have accumulated can continue to be utilized to push FFH to a better place in the future. Due to its rural location and a payer mix that is economically disadvantaged, our service area has some of the poorest health outcomes in the state, and FFH struggles financially to make ends meet with the property taxes that account for a considerable portion of the hospital’s operating budget.
A recent article in The Acadiana Advocate purported to identify a rift between hospital employees and hospital management related to two fundamentally different topics. One relates to hazard pay for our tremendous frontline workers dealing with COVID-19 patients, and the other is a proposed wellness center that can assist in bettering our overall healthcare outcomes through early intervention and lifestyle changes. Especially in places like Franklin and its surrounding areas, getting people engaged in their individual health plans is vital in preventing what we see all too often: people only seeking medical attention in an emergency or when they are critically ill. As I announced in March at a St. Mary Chamber of Commerce luncheon, this center will provide wellness testing, nutritional counseling, behavioral health for seniors, and activity areas and pools for exercise. Its clinical areas will expand services for orthopedics, cardiac rehab, physical therapy, and much more. Most importantly, this center will be funded through Federal FMAP funds and state capital outlay dollars, not funds related to the current pandemic.
As someone who has deep roots and investment in our community, I can tell you unequivocally that we can accomplish both of these goals. Since the beginning of April, we have been trying to identify ways to allocate hazard pay to our deserving employees, but because of our designation as a Public Critical Access Hospital, FFH is restricted by state law from using normal operating funds for that purpose. Just recently, however, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor granted approval for the payment of hazard pay using Federal CARES Act funds, and the hospital is waiting on an Attorney General’s opinion that would allow hazard pay to be paid retroactively to the beginning of the pandemic. I am very well aware that the hazard pay question has lingered over all of our employees during these stressful times, but rest assured, the only reason for that uncertainty has been the guidance that management has needed on how to properly fund it.
On a small level, the article’s theme gets at the root of why our country has such a low trust of the news media currently. If someone puts in a little research and throws in a quote about how the wellness center is “one of the best-kept secrets...and they want to keep it that way,” it adds intrigue, mystery, and drama that ties two unrelated topics together at the expense of our employees who I would argue have enough stress to deal with during their shifts. This is a manufactured crisis that is attempting to divide management and staff at a time when we should be working together toward short-term priorities such as employee hazard pay and long-term goals such as the wellness center.
Another quote from the article suggests “at the core, what’s happening at Franklin Foundation is a fundamental conflict between the leadership’s focus and the employees’ interests,” and to affirm that position, a Johns Hopkins professor of accounting and health policy is quoted as saying that “it’s very normal. Every single hospital that is receiving the federal relief money is now facing this struggle.” I would simply ask that if there is always natural tension between management and employees, then why is this being used as evidence of underhandedness on the part of FFH leadership? It is just another attempt to create a story that just is not there.
During these times, hospitals all over the state are under more stress than many of us can remember. Not only are they dealing with very sick patients with COVID-19 and all of the difficulties that come with that type of critical care, they are also dealing with less revenue from elective procedures that have been postponed due to the pandemic. Franklin Foundation Hospital has great employees and truly embodies the mantra of “doing more with less,” and I credit everyone involved both past and present for making it the facility it is today. But I also do not want us to be satisfied with where we are simply because that is how it has always been.
Bret Allain, R-Franklin, represents state Senate District 21, which covers St. Mary Parish.