Historic Mandeville Psychiatric Hospital Prepares To Close
MANDEVILLE, La. (AP) — Almost 60 years since it opened, the Southeast Louisiana Hospital — a psychiatric facility that gained national notoriety in 1959 when then-Gov. Earl Long was briefly committed there — is preparing to close down its daily operations.
The Times-Picayune reports that the hospital’s closing is part of an $859 million cut to the state’s federal Medicaid program.
The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals hopes to send all 176 beds occupied at the hospital to other public and private hospitals in the state.
Mental health advocates worry some beds will be lost and patients will suffer due to the closing.
This closing comes on top of others. In recent years, the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, Greenwell Springs Hospital and services at Charity Hospital in New Orleans have shut down.
Leave a Comment