Home Care In Baton Rouge, LA

“This is where I’m going to die!” declared an ebullient Timothy “Timmie” Callais.

The place in question was the modern black box theater on the rebuilt campus of Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts, or BRCVPA.

The $34.4 million project — construction cost was $27 million — was completed this summer just in time for the start of the 2025-26 school year. Students and staff have spent the past two school years five miles away at the former Kenilworth Middle campus.

Friday’s “Meet the Teacher” event was the first time parents and students got a chance to see the two-story facility that has been sprouting up for months from the ground at 2040 S. Acadian Thruway.

Wearing a colorful top hat, which he calls his “magician’s hat,” Callais welcomed parents and students into his new favorite place. The centerpiece of the very black and purposefully nondescript room is a large bay door.

“Ta da!” Callais said as he pressed the "open" button.

The door slowly rose, revealing the school’s large tree-covered courtyard and its open-air amphitheater.

Across the hall is a third performance space that Callais will also be using frequently, the school's large modern auditorium.

Friday was filled with joyous reunions for adults and children alike. One child sprinted toward “Mr. C,” as Callais is known by students, and gave him a flying hug.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome!” said the smiling teacher.

Callais, who is also a professional actor, is in his fourth year teaching at BRCVPA. He worked in a rundown “wasp-infested” temporary building on the old demolished BRCVPA campus — it was Walnut Hills Elementary when it opened in 1954 until it became BRCVPA in 1996. And for the past two years, he occupied a science lab at Kenilworth that he painted black.

Now, Callais is reveling in his new digs, both what is new and what has been preserved from the past.

“I love that I can sit at my desk and have this big beautiful tree out there,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘I know where I am. I’m home!’”

Jada Goss had similar sentiments. Her daughter started at BRCVPA in 2016 and now her son Jaden is starting fifth grade. She said the Kenilworth campus had its pluses, but it was distant, meaning a longer journey to and from school each day.

“It was spacious, but it just wasn’t BRCVPA,” Goss said.

Friday’s event was packed. Two long lines quickly formed, as people converged on the rebuilt school ahead of the 1 p.m. opening of the doors.

They were greeted one by one by a smiling Principal Louis Moore.

Teachers first saw the school only two days earlier, on Wednesday, and raced to get their classrooms ready for Friday’s show-and-tell.

In addition to her books and supplies, first grade teacher Jenny Couvillion brought her trusty animal companions, Gumbo and Paddington. The two guinea pigs spend their day in cages by the door to classroom 144. Their names are not by accident.

“Since I teach ELA (English Language Arts) and social studies, Paddington is a kids book and then Gumbo, that’s for Louisiana culture,” Couvillion said.

One of Couvillion’s new students is Wilder. The 6-year-old boy’s mother, Kathryn Jameson, said her son has autism. In his case, that means he is very advanced in math, but is prone to overstimulation that can lead him to nod off occasionally. She said BRCVPA has looked out for Wilder in ways she appreciates.

“They treated him like he was a special person, not a special problem,” she said.

Jameson said she is excited about the new facility, especially the new auditorium.

“I can’t wait to hear the acoustics and see the productions,” Jameson said. “I think it’s really gonna bring things to a whole new level.”

Soon after Moore took over in 2021 as BRCVPA's principal, he shared his ideas for the planned reconstruction of the popular magnet school. While not an artist, he made his own drawings of what he wanted and handed them to the general contractor, Ratcliff-VPG, a joint venture, and the architects, RHH Architects-Tipton Associates, also a joint venture.

“Oh my goodness, when they came out with their drawings, it blew my mind,” Moore recalled. “It was like 95% what we wanted.”

“The No. 1 priority was to address the car pool issue,” he said.

The old BRCVPA was notorious for its hellacious car pool lane, which would tie up traffic twice a day in both directions on Acadian.

The new site plan tackles the problem in multiple ways. It has separate car and bus entrances, and parking during the day has dramatically increased to 189 spots.

The new car pool lane is actually three lanes wide and will accommodate up to 158 cars, far more than previously. To limit any continued stacking up on Acadian, motorists will be able to enter the car pool entrance only by heading south on Acadian. And to prevent people from crossing Acadian, a new traffic barrier has been erected.

“The traffic on South Acadian won’t be nearly as long,” Moore said.

The new school is almost 80,000 square feet, and its capacity has increased from about 450 to more than 600 students.

The school will immediately be put into action. East Baton Rouge Parish schools open up for staff Monday and students return Thursday. Monday is also a "Districtwide Enrollment Day” where school officials are pressing families that have not already enrolled to make a beeline to the school their children plan to attend.

Construction is mostly complete at BRCVPA. The only exceptions are a new exterior fence and the permanent railing for the main staircase to the second floor. That upper floor is reserved for the older kids in fourth and fifth grades.

Melissa Jackson's classroom is at the end of the hall on the second floor. She is starting her fifth year at BRVPA. She has taught kindergarten, second grade and now fifth grade.

“I’ve moved everywhere,” she jokes.

Compared with Kenilworth, she loves the new campus.

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Louisiana is leading the country in one STI, and is high in several others, according to data from the CDC.

“It’s easier and a lot less costly to prevent disease than it is to treat,” David Ourso, Open Health Care Clinic Family Nurse Practitioner, said.

Ourso treats and educates patients with STDs or STIs at the Open Health Care Clinic in Baton Rouge.

“A lot of times, patients will come in, they don’t have symptoms, but they’re not getting regularly tested, nor are we using our safe sex practices,” Ourso said.

According to the CDC, in 2023, Louisiana was #1 in chlamydia, #2 in gonorrhea, #7 in congenital syphilis, and #8 in primary and secondary syphilis.

These numbers were not always this high. A report from the Louisiana Department of Health five years ago showed syphilis and gonorrhea cases were on the decline, but still high compared to the rest of the country.

Ourso says we are seeing these high numbers because of an overall lack of education.

“It doesn’t take just intercourse or penetration to get that STI. A lot of patients come in, and they might have an STD, STI in their mouth or in another part of their body that is not getting tested. So if a person is only testing blood work or urine, but we’re not testing other areas that we like to have sexual activity in, well then we’re spreading that without even knowing that we have an STD,” Ourso said.

Ourso says the stigma around STDs and STIs can hold people back from seeking care, but says the uncomfortable conversation is worth it for your health.

“If I had to give a personal anecdote, the first time I had somebody test me, the best thing that stuck with me, and to this day, I say to all my patients, the only person monogamous in a relationship is you. So, making sure that you’re taking care of your health, and we’re here to help you. So if you have questions, concerns, you need those resources, we’re here to give those to you and I think that is the way to get those numbers down, educating patients, making sure they know where to go, making sure that the state and the surrounding cities have the resources that they need for testing those patients,” Ourso said.

The Open Health Care Clinic and its HAART program provide free screenings and care on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, click here.

Click here to report a typo. Please include the headline.

Click here to subscribe to our WAFB 9 News daily digest and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your email inbox.

Copyright 2025 WAFB. All rights reserved.

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Thousands of students throughout the Baton Rouge area are preparing to head back to school.

Dates for the start of classes are listed below:

Click here to report a typo. Please include the headline.

Click here to subscribe to our WAFB 9 News daily digest and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your email inbox.

Mayor Edwards approved Baton Rouge General’s ambulance service entry, raising concerns from Acadian Ambulance over need and process

By Patrick Sloan-TurnerThe Advocate

BATON ROUGE, La. — For decades, Acadian Ambulance has provided the lion’s share of ambulance services not handled by East Baton Rouge’s own Emergency Medical Services, transporting patients from facilities like hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living centers and more in the parish.

But now, Mayor-President Sid Edwards has opened the door for a competitor, allowing Baton Rouge General to enter the market.

“We are excited about the opportunity to better support patients in Baton Rouge and help ensure they get where they need to go quickly,” said Meghan Parrish , Vice President of Marketing and Communications.

Edwards made the decision over protests from Acadian, which argues city-parish ordinances require the mayor to consider “whether the public convenience and necessity require,” a new ambulance service.

“We definitely did not like the way it was done, because it did not follow the ordinance,” said Acadian Director of Operations Porter Taylor.

Still, Taylor added that the company is “not interested in making it messy.”

Officials in Edwards’ administration have acknowledged potential problems with how the new service was approved. They point out that an initial approval was granted before he took office.

“Based on the information that was discovered from the previous administration, the city’s ordinances were not followed,” said city-parish spokesperson Falon Brown.

Yet Edwards ultimately granted BRG’s request, citing “the purpose of competition.”

Edwards’ team declined to comment on whether a need for another operator existed or how that might be determined.

Concerns about the process

The change began last year, under former Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome’s administration. On Dec. 26, days before she left office, Broome sent a letter to BRG allowing them to provide ambulance service, writing that “a need exists within the parish,” documents show.

About a month later, after Edwards moved into City Hall, Deputy Parish Attorney Courtney Humphrey sent a Jan. 28 letter to BRG’s leaders saying Broome’s decision didn’t follow the rules.

Emails obtained through a public records request show BRG officials urging Edwards’s administration to reject the attorney’s interpretation. But they also show Acadian Ambulance pressing to stand by it.

“I urge you to ensure that all relevant written ordinances and processes to determine whether in fact a need for additional services exists, are followed,” Taylor wrote to Edwards’ chief of staff, Lon Vicknair on July 2.

According to Taylor and Acadian, no need for an additional provider exists.

… it appears that Baton Rouge General’s intentions are self-serving,” he wrote. “To my knowledge, there have been no other health care entities in this parish that have expressed a need for additional ambulance services, including your own municipal EMS.”

On July 14, Edwards issued a letter to BRG granting a request to apply for an ambulance service for nonemergency calls and emergencies when requested by city-parish EMS.

Avoiding ‘something messy’

On Monday, Porter called BRG “friends” of Acadian Ambulance and said leadership from both will meet soon to figure out how to coexist.

He said he understands why Edwards made the decision he did, though he still said it was “tough to swallow.”

“He’s going to work with Baton Rouge General because he has to,” he said.

Porter said he thinks Edwards had to honor the Broome administration’s decision from December to avoid “something messy” from BRG..

“Because of the conflict of how things went down between the two administrations, you know, Mayor Edwards said, ‘Look, what the previous administration did, I can’t really undo without causing a mess,’” Porter said.

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The world’s largest HIV/AIDS non-profit is expanding its reach in Baton Rouge. This comes after recent data from the Louisiana Department of Health shows 875 new HIV diagnoses statewide, and 133 of them were in East Baton Rouge Parish, putting Baton Rouge in the top five cities nationwide with HIV diagnoses.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Mobilizer and Advocacy Consultant with AHF Sashika Baunchand.

That’s why Baunchand is excited to open AIDS Healthcare Foudnation’s newest HIV Specialty Clinic. They’ll offer HIV and STI screenings and wellness days for people 14 years or older to get tested and treated regardless of their ability to pay, which Baunchand said will remove barriers for lower income patients.

“Food insecurity, housing, and transportation, so all those issues that people say may get in the way of them being able to get into care and get medicine,” explained Baunchand.

Medicine Family Nurse Practitioner Erika Forbes said it is vital.

“HIV is a disease of the entire body,” explained Forbes. “It attacks your immune system, but it affects the gut, your mental health, it affects everything, so if you don’t take care of the primary disease, then all those other processes can take effect on the body.”

Over the last five years, Forbes’ HIV patients have nearly doubled. She hopes opening this clinic will help these numbers start trending in the right direction.

“We want to get as many people in care so that we don’t have as many new patients coming in,” said Forbes. “We want to decrease the stigma, decrease the diagnosis rate, and increase the treatment rate. We also do Prep services so we can prevent the spread of HIV.”

The new clinic is located at 8425 Cumberland Place in Baton Rouge. It’s open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Click here to report a typo. Please include the headline.

Click here to subscribe to our WAFB 9 News daily digest and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your email inbox.

Copyright 2025 WAFB. All rights reserved.