Admission, Emergency Rooms Study Planned ; $7,093,303 is Spent by Confederate

              it Confederate
Admission, Emergency
Rooms Study Planned
A committee of the Confeder-ate
Memorial Medical Center's
medical staff is making a study
of the admission and emergency
rooms at the hospital and "will
make recommendations when
they see fit," said Hospital
Director Dr. Edgar Galloway at
$7,093,303
Is Spent by
Confederate
Expenditures of the Confeder-ate
Memorial Medical Center
for the past eight months
totaled $7,093,303, according to a
statement to the directors last
night.
Two items not included in the
total, according to the report,
are Emploee's Retirement,
$20,764, and professional serv-ices
due Louisiana State Univer-sity
School of M e d i c i n e at
Shreveport, $64,000.
The school said the report,
"has not billed the Confederate
for professional services since
September and the statement
from the Retirement System
was lost in the mail."
Adjustment for the two items
would reflect an over all defi-ciency
of $77,664, said the
statement.
The report also said "there
was an over expenditure of
$58,461 in the contractual serv-ices
account at Feb. 29. This is
p r i m a r i l y due to insurance
premiums and maintenance
contracts paid at the betinning
of the year."
The,report also showed:
1. M a t e r i a l s and supplies
reflected an over expenditure of
$49,913 at the end of the
eight-month period, compared
to an over e x p e n d i t u r e of
$131,960 at the same time last
year.
2. O p e r a t i n g expense per
patient day averaged $56.75 for
the past eight m o n t h s , an
increase .53 or one per cent
over last year.
3. Medicare-medicaid collec-tions
for the eight m o n t h s
totaled $2,329,611. Receipts from
ineligible patients amounted to
$195,696 for the period
the board of directors month
session last night.
But the hospital official sai
the study has nothing to do wit
charges made by newly elects
black legislator Alphonse Jack
son Jr. last week.
Jackson said he was con
cerned with the operation of th
hospital and wanted to "zero i
on the admissions room."
Waiting time in the admittin
room, the legislator said, is
minimum of four hours "and
can be up to eight hours or 10."
Jackson also criticized en-planes
in the admitting room
saying he felt they "are Civ
Service employes of long tenur
who feel insulated." Patients, h
said are "unheard an
unanswered . . . . "
Galloway said the admissior
room and emergency room "ar
something the medical staff he
always been c o n c e r n e
about . . . . they are p r e t t
well informed most of the time
They are not ignorant . . . . "
The hospital director sai
sometimes it was a question o
too few spaces for physicians to
work in. He predicted that the
new outpatient clinic would help
the situation.