In the ongoing dispute over the extent to which Charity Hospital sustained damage during Hurricane Katrina, state officials have decided to use a special arbitration panel to adjudicate the matter instead of the traditional appeals process.

We here at SaveCharityHospital.com are supportive of efforts to speed up this final determination of FEMA's obligations to the city of New Orleans. This process, however, should be open to the public and inclusive of all stakeholders. Unfortunately, according to the Department of Homeland Security's press materials, it appears as though the special arbitration is being set up as a secret proceeding.

State officials have long maintained that Charity Hospital was completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, over the 50% threshold that would require FEMA to reimburse for the full cost of replacing the hospital. FEMA has disagreed, pointing out over the course of the appeals process to date that much of the damage claimed by Secretary Jerry Jones of the Department of Facilities Planning and Control, was caused by years of the state's own deferred maintenance and a failure to secure the building after the storm to prevent further deterioration.

Members of the group of medical and military personnel who helped clean and decontamine the first three floors of Charity Hospital in the weeks after the failure of the federal levee system have said that only the basement of the building flooded and witnessed it being pumped completely dry. This website obtained photographs of Charity Hospital taken after the cleanup, supporting up claims by members of the cleanup crew that the facility was ready to receive patients when state officials shuttered its doors. For instance, here's what the first floor Emergency Room looked liked on September 21st, 2005, three weeks after the storm:

And here's what the first floor Emergency Room looked like nearly four years later, on June 1st, 2009 when Congressman Cao visited Charity Hospital:

New Orleans residents filed a lawsuit against the State of Louisiana for the closure of Charity Hospital without the approval of the Legislature as required by law. Lawyers in that case filed an intervention in the original FEMA appeals process to ensure that relevant facts from the lawsuit would be heard.

It remains unclear whether or not parties on the intervention will be a party within the special arbitration process and the arbitration panel proceedings will be entirely closed to the public. Given the badly flawed processes behind the decision to close Charity Hospital in the first place and the largely unpopular decision to build an expensive and expansive medical complex on top of a struggling residential community since then, it is upsetting that federal officials have negotiated yet another closed-door setting in which yet another far-reaching decision will be handed down.

In related news, this Wednesday, October 7th, the Committee to Reopen Charity Hospital is co-sponsoring a special forum to update attendees about the current status of a few ongoing legal  challenges along with Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association, United Teachers of New Orleans, New Orleans Pax Christi, National Lawyers Guild (Loyola Chapter), and the Social and Economic Rights Advocates (Tulane). The event begins at 6:30 PM and will be held at Grace Episcopal Church, 3500 Canal St.