By LEONARD GRAY

HAHNVILLE – Construction on a new $1.3 million St. Charles Parish Health Unit will begin next month in Luling, with groundbreaking planned April 12 at 11 a.m.

The St. Charles Parish Council approved the construction contract with Lamar Construction for the 13,400-square-foot building on Milling Avenue. The facility will be replacing the tiny, antiquated health unit at 201 Post St., long the critical target of past grand juries touring public facilities.

Lamar will have 310 calendar days to complete the project, which is a joint venture operation of St. Charles Parish Hospital and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Parish administrator Timothy Vial recalled that the DHH has been closing health units across the state for several years, and St. Charles Parish was allowed to keep its present office open, because progress was being made toward the new facility.

The new health unit, besides offering more space for its present role in preventative medicine for the public, will also offer primary care with additional physicians recruited through the hospital, added hospital administrator Fred Martinez. That opens up the possibility for supplementary federal funding for continued operations of the health unit.

Martinez said he plans no employee layoffs and will work with agencies on post-9/11 sanitation concerns, such as anthrax. The health unit also has the parish sanitarian, which inspects public facilities for health code adherance.

“What they expected to receive, they’ll get a lot more,” Martinez pledged.

Council chairman Clayton Faucheux said, “This is nothing but a win-win situation.”

Not all were favorable, however. Council member Dee Abadie alleged she tried to push for the hospital to absorb the health unit, within the hospital itself and was rebuffed and told it was not possible.

“It became appealing when the hospital approached the DHH,” she continued, and added she was concerned with hospital finances and the practice of recruiting doctors for the health unit.

Martinez responded, “We did not contact the state first, they contacted us.” He did agree that doctors from the hospital would work at the health unit as part of the joint-venture operation, providing primary care.

Councilman G. “Ram” Ramchandran said, “This is another cash cow someone will milk.”

Approval for the construction contract was approved 5-2, with Abadie and Ramchandran voting against, and April Black and Terry Authement absent.