MELINDA DESLATTE Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Another top leader of LSU's health care system is being replaced, as Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration pushes the university-run network of hospitals and clinics to change its approach to providing services amid significant budget cuts.

Roxane Townsend will no longer work as CEO of the LSU Health Care Services Division, which runs seven of the 10 public hospitals overseen by the university system, including the largest facility in New Orleans.

LSU announced the leadership change Wednesday by naming Townsend's replacement, without explanation.

The move comes fewer than two weeks after the LSU System's top health care leader, Fred Cerise, was ousted from his job. Cerise clashed with the Jindal administration about deep budget cuts the administration made to the hospitals that care for Louisiana's poor and uninsured and that train many of the state's medical professionals.

Townsend was a close ally of Cerise, who was replaced Aug. 24 by Frank Opelka.

Townsend wouldn't say whether she was asked to leave or expected to be removed as Opelka assembled his own leadership team. But she said the LSU board, packed with nearly all Jindal appointees, was shifting from the public-hospital model championed by Townsend and Cerise.

"With Dr. Opelka, it's clear that the system is going in a different direction and he needs to have people surrounding him that he trusts and that the board and the governor's office will trust," she said.

Opelka said Townsend chose to leave the LSU HCSD job and that no one spoke with him about removing Townsend. He said Townsend "really wanted to take some personal time away," and he praised her work for the university.

While saying he didn't force Townsend out of the leadership position, Opelka acknowledged that Townsend "had been building something in a certain direction, but the direction is changing."

Originally posted here:

Another LSU System health care leader replaced