Harlan Kirgan
The St. Landry Parish Council approved $10,000 as its share of removing asbestos from the old Moosa Memorial Hospital.
Parish President Jessie Bellard recommended the approval at Wednesday’s meeting.
The money will come from the parish’s health unit account, he said.
The money is to be paid to the St. Landry Parish Hospital District 1 Board and when the hospital property is sold it is to paid back to parish government.
Coby Clavier, of Eunice and Council chairman, said “I’m pleased with the outcome. I think we can now finally move forward to get thing to market if we can get that asbestos removed. I think this finally going to moving forward. It is good news.”
At a committee meeting two weeks ago, Bellard said, ““It needs to be torn down, but it is full of asbestos. They have $286,000 in their bank account ... and they are asking us to put up $10,000 so they can get the contract out to start doing the asbestos removal.”
Bellard did not know when the hospital board would take action.
Newton “Chip” Thibodeaux, chairman of the St. Landry Hospital Service District 1 board, did not return a call requesting comment.
Bellard said ultimately the hospital is owned by parish government.
“If that board runs out of money it belongs to us. We foot the whole bill,” he said in in urging the Council to approve the agreement and the $10,000.
Garrett Duplechain, Council attorney, said he searched conveyance records and found the hospital ownership does not revert to the Moosa family. That possibility was raised at the previous Council meeting this month.
“To elaborate, I will say that Sept. 2,, 1954, is when the property was transferred to the hospital service district,” Duplechain said.
The property was to be used for the hospital and that condition was met, he said.
“So, when the hospital ceases to exist or is sold it does not go back to the Moosa family,” he said.
The hospital was vacated in 2006 when the new facility, Acadian Medical Center, was opened on the east side of Eunice.
The hospital district owns the land the new hospital is located on.
In 2019, the Eunice Board of Aldermen passed a resolution asking the parish government to do something with the old hospital that has been vacant since 2005.
Clavier said a previous estimate for the demolition of the old hospital was about $750,000.