By Greg LaRose, New Orleans City Business, March 29, 2012

Children’s Hospital has notified the state that it wants to purchase New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, the adjacent mental health care facility that has been closed since 2009.

Children’s issued a statement this afternoon say it had contacted Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater to express its intent to buy NOAH.

A purchase price for the Click here to find out more!
hospital was not disclosed, but Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget proposal before the Louisiana Legislature includes a $35 million provision for the sale of the hospital.

Gov. Bobby Jindal announced in 2009 that he would shutter NOAH and move its 35 inpatient beds to Southeastern Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville where care costs would be almost 50 percent lower. Outpatient clinic services at NOAH were moved to an Algiers location.

About 200 employees at the hospital were affected by the shutdown.

Transferring the facility to private ownership has been an option the administration has put forward since it first announced it would be pulling state money from NOAH, the city primary mental health care site for youth before Hurricane Katrina.

According to the statement from Children’s Hospital, the property will be used for “health care and educational purposes well into the future.”