The Police Jury's public Transportation Fiasco
The Police Jury is discussing the possibility of taking pay cuts to fund the
transportation woes of the council on aging's program of providing rides for dialysis
patients. This is a very noble gesture, but before doing that and devalueing the post of
police juror, I would recommend that an analysis of the operating budget of the council on
aging be performed as well as the transportation programs. Perhaps there are some
inefficiencies or waste that exists that could ultimately help the program. Perhaps the
money can be located elsewhere in the budget.
First of all, dialysis patients should have rides to and from their treatments. You'll get
no argument from me there. My argument is based on who should be doing it.
My first question on the subject is about "Who" should be
providing this service. My 2nd question is why the Jeff Davis Parish Police Jury
volunteer'd for this service. My third question is "How" did it get involved.
The single most fundamental question we should all be asking is..."Who's
responsibility is it"?
First and foremost it is the families responsibility to insure their members are cared for
with transportation to treatment.
In some cases family may live out of state or do not exist at all. In those cases it
should fall to private organizations, charities, and church groups. Billions are poured
into private charities annually. These charities are funded by business and caring
individuals. Some recieve grant money from the Fed's or the state. The delimma is which
one carries out this task? It is a delimma that falls to the council on aging if it
nominated itself to get involve in this service.
Next in line, it should fall to the state, and their transportation services. Rides are
provided for people to go register to vote and sometimes to cast their vote...free of
charge. We provide rides for people for just about everything it seems except for dialysis
patients and disabled american veterans and those who are in real need. You can get rides
to Mexico to go shopping. You can get rides to the Casino. But a dialysis patient can't
find a ride to treatment? What's wrong with this picture?
At some point in time the Jeff Davis Parish Police Jury decided that it would accept the responsiblity. It appears nobody at that time said....Wait a minute! Is this really our function? What about all these other agencies and voluteer organizations? What about Medicaid/Medicare? Who is paying for the dialysis? Why are the people paying for the treatment not also paying for the transportation to obtain it? Why can't the treatment be brought to them? We've got mobile everything. Mobile drug testing, mobile MRI, Mobile driving simulators. We can even have a mobile library and in emergency situations we can mobilize an entire hospital. Why isn't there mobile dialysis?
My gripe here is that for the Police Jury to be involved in this program
is nothing less than absolute proof that there is a breakdown in the system. The police
jury taking on the task is a noble one but it is a band-aid approach to a larger problem.
There are a number of levels of responsibility before it ever gets to the police jury.
Whoever is paying for the dialysis, whether it be insurance, medi-care, or whoever,
they should also be paying for the ride to dialysis.
We have people who are collecting unemployment and people on social
security disability that are capable of driving. They should be required to participate in
these programs as a condition to receiving benefits. Options to deal with this are
abundant.
I'm sure there are a few retired persons who wouldn't mind volunteering for it if the
insurance companies and lawyers wouldn't get involved.
The bottom line here is that providing rides for dialysis patients or cancer patients or
disabled american veterans, while it sounds good for political cannon fodder, is not the
function of the police jury, and they know it. In the end they will remind us that it is
not their function, and the program will be cut anyway.
The Police Jury should not take a cut in pay. In fact, the Police Jury
should give itself a 15% raise. Why? Because I want the pay scale of a Police Juror
to be attractive to would be candidates. This is how we end up with unopposed candidates
in an election year. If they take a cut now, it will discourage would be candidates. After
their unopposed election, they will take a pay increase, above what they cut, while
reminding voters what they did a few years back. This is a sham!
Do not let your Police Juror cut the pay of the position. They are temporary holders of
the position and the adjustments of pay and benefits should have the input of the voters.
Do not let them devalue the position they currently hold. Trust me the pay cut will only
last through the next election cycle. Instead.....let's give em a raise!