Louisiana State University is preparing to fight a legislative effort to strip it of its control of the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans and possibly disrupt plans to construct a $1.2 billion facility.

The Louisiana House voted unanimously on Monday to approve a bill proposed by Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, to  transfer ownership of the current medical center, which also is known as the Interim LSU Public Hospital, to a nonprofit group that will be formed.

But a spokesman for the LSU System said LSU believes the proposal can be blocked in the state Senate.

Under the House bill, the LSU Public Hospital  - the temporary replacement for Charity Hospital,  which was flooded by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – would be owned by an independent board of seven trustees unaffiliated with any academic institution. The board would include members appointed by the governor and members of the House and Senate.

The bill also calls for  a board of directors made up of five representatives, one each from LSU, Tulane University, Xavier University, Dillard University and Delgado Community College, along with four other members with expertise in finance, medicine, health care management or other professionals.

“Be it medical education, be it indigent care, or be it research,”  Tucker said, “all five institutions play a role in those three areas of service throughout the hospital” Creating a nonprofit board  ”gives those five players a reason to participate in the process and a reason to make sure that they’re a success at the university hospital.”

Tucker said it is not his intention to completely separate LSU from the medical center’s operations. However, he said the bill puts the management of the hospital  in the hands of a professional hospital manager.

 ”I want LSU to focus on medical education, focus on research, and not have to worry about changing light bulbs and waxing floors. I think that is something for professional management to do and I think it can be done much better,” he said.

Pending a successful readiness assessment, which is designed to make sure that the new entity is prepared to take over the operation’s assets, the medical center would be under new control effective Jan. 1, 2010.

This bill comes as LSU is planning to construct the Louisiana State University Academic Medical Center, a $1.2 billion medical facility to replace the Interim LSU Public Hospital. Construction is set to begin in 2010.

 According to an open letter written by the LSU system’s president, Dr. John Lombardi, before the bill passed in the House, LSU intends to employ a similar nonprofit plan under its control if it retains control of the  new facility. Under the LSU plan, the board of  directors would consist of 11 members, 5 of whom would be appointed by the president of the LSU system. The presidents of Xavier and Tulane universities would each hold a position, and another position would be jointly appointed by the presidents of Dillard University and Delgado Community College.

“Central to LSU’s not-for-profit, private-style governance plan for the new Academic Medical Center in New Orleans is minimizing politics and governmental inefficiency,” Lombardi wrote.

Dr. Charles Zewe, an LSU System spokesman, said  implementation of the House bill  would dramatically slow construction of the new hospital, among other things.

It will make the hospital “politically subservient and continue a wasteful and ineffectual operation of a medical enterprise that has been plagued by overspending, overstaffing and inefficient operations for a very long time,” he said.

The next step is for the bill to be voted on in the Senate, which Zewe said is “more familiar with the dynamics of health care in Louisiana.” He said LSU has  already begun one-on-one conversations with senators to plead its case.

“You never say that anything is certain in any legislative body until you count votes, but we appear to be getting a receptive audience for our case,” Zewe said. “Real people are suffering, not politicians, and that’s what we have an eye on, taking care of people.”