The Iberia Medical Center Board of Commissioners held a special meeting Friday afternoon to discuss actions taken to change the procedure for appointing medical staff representatives to the board.

The meeting was scheduled in anticipation of a resolution the Iberia Parish Council passed Wednesday night to request the Louisiana Legislature amend the state statute governing Iberia Parish Hospital District No. 1 to clarify the makeup of the board and allow the IMC Executive Medical Committee to control the board’s medical staff appointments.

“We talked about the resolution as it was passed in the meeting Wednesday night,” IMC Chairman Larry Hensgens said. “It was an informational meeting.”

The council passed the resolution in a 9-2 vote, with three members absent. One of the absent members, District 10 Councilman Eugene Olivier, sent in a memorandum of support for the move although he was not present to vote.

“I feel the changes introduced tonight are in the best interest of Iberia Parish and its citizens,” Olivier wrote in the memo, which was read into the meeting record. “I will also contact the Iberia Parish Legislative Delegation showing my support for the proposed changes.”

The proposed changes include spelling out the makeup of the hospital’s nine-member board, with the parish council appointing seven members and the executive medical committee of IMC appointing two members from the hospital’s medical staff. Previously, the medical staff board representatives were recommended to the council, which made the actual appointment. 

The suggested language the council sent to the legislature also specifies that board members will be limited to three four-year terms.

The council’s resolution stemmed from an analysis done at the request of state Sen. Fred Mills which determined there was some vague language in the statute under which the board operates. When the statute was amended in 1995 to allow for the appointment of two members of the hospital’s medical staff to the board, for example, the research showed that the number of board members could be interpreted as either 7 or 9.

Members of the council and medical executive committee met over the last two weeks to craft the language in the request sent to the legislative delegation. Some board members Friday asked why the IMC board did not have any input in the drafting of the resolution.

“I explained to them that although the board is shaped through the appointment process, we don’t have a dog in that fight,” Hensgens said. “That was an issue for the parish council and the medical executive committee to hash out.”

The deadline for submitting the resolution to the legislature was Wednesday, necessitating a waiving of council rules to allow the measure to bypass the committee process.