Abbeville General to build new behavioral medicine unit

Troy Hair, Abbeville General’s chief financial officer, attended Monday night’s Police Jury meeting to follow up on the Police Jury approving a $5 million loan the hospital is applying for to help construct a behavioral medicine unit/safe-room behind the hospital. The police jury approved the loan, but it came after a 15 minute question and answer session between Hair and one police juror.
Abbeville General has been awarded a $3.3 million grant from FEMA to help build a replacement of its existing Behavioral Medicine unit that is currently housed in a 1992 modular building. The new Abbeville General Behavioral Medicine Center will function as its inpatient mental health unit on a daily basis and will serve as a safe room during hurricane events.
FEMA is giving the hospital a $3.3 million grant to help construct only the shell of the building for the new behavioral medicine unit. The 13,330 square foot building will be one of the strongest in the parish and will be able to withstand hurricane winds of 200 miles per hour.
The hospital’s share of making the shell of the building able to withstand 200 mile per hour winds is $1.1 million. The hospital will pay another $2.2 million to cover the cost of the building’s features that are specific to an inpatient hospital setting and thus not eligible for reimbursement by FEMA.
In a separate project, but also covered by the $5 million loan, the hospital will also use an estimated $1.4 million to construct a permanent clinic that services Erath and Delcambre.
The total cost of both projects will be right at $8 million.
In order to move forward with the projects, Abbeville General needs to borrow $5 million from a financial institution.
The loan would be paid back from the sales tax collection in Hospital District No. 2 over a 10-year period and will consume right at 20% of the existing annual sales tax collections.
Police Juror Mark Poché told Hair that he read the FEMA grant application last week and did not like verbiage that was used in the grant application. It was the first time the police jury was able to read the grant applications.
Poché attempted to read the 100-page FEMA grant application and saw words like “911” “OEP” and “emergency response teams.” According to Poché, words like 911, OEP and emergency response teams were placed in the grant application to make it easier for the hospital to obtain the $3.3 million in grant money.
Poché’s understanding of what the grant application said was that Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP) and 911 would move to the new hospital building when there was a hurricane en route to Vermilion Parish. The grant stated, according to Poché, that all of the fire departments could be housed in the building during a hurricane.
“We have no intentions of moving our operations to the hospital,” Poché told Hair.
Hair educated Poché by saying it was never the hospital’s intention to move 911 or OEP operations and equipment to the new building during a hurricane, but rather to allow approximately 300 first responder, 911, and OEP personnel to take refuge during a category 3 or higher hurricane event in which the VPOEP has declared a mandatory evacuation including our patients.
Because of the FEMA grant, the building will be built to withstand powerful winds, making it a safe and comfortable place for the parish’s emergency personnel to be, Hair explained. The building can house emergency workers while the hurricane passes over the parish, he added.
Poché added that the police jury would like a federal grant also to build a building that could withstand 200 mile per winds during a hurricane. The building would be used as a central location for emergency personnel to meet and coordinate hurricane procedures.
Poché now fears that the chance of the police jury getting a FEMA grant to help build a strong building is lowered because Abbeville General is getting federal money for the same type of building, which such request was previously considered by the Police Jury on November 18, 2013, resulting in the Jury approving Abbeville General to be assigned as the lead/applicant for the HMA Safe Room Program.