 "Photo: Karina Jaques; The Daily Texan")
Billions of dollars in proposed state funding for the hurricane-damaged University of Texas Medical Branch now await Gov. Rick Perry’s signature after the state House and Senate approved several bills last weekend.
Three bills passed in the final weekend of the 81st legislative session fund educational endeavors at the campus and provide relief to the health care industry of Southeast Texas.
“This was the effort of a whole lot of people in our state in trying to address the damage done,” said Ben Raimer, senior vice president for health policy and legislative affairs at UTMB. “They did an extraordinary job in seeing the opportunity to bring down this federal and private money; they made an extraordinary deal here.”
The bills followed a plan created by state Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, to pull together $1.3 billion for UTMB by providing enough state money to leverage federal and philanthropic funding as well. The funds allotted from the state 2010-2011 budget, the supplemental appropriations bill and another bill fell only $14 million short of Eiland’s goal.
The latter of the three bills gave UTMB the $150 million needed as a requisite to receive $450 million in FEMA funding.
“We had to have $150 million upfront, and now we do,” Raimer said. “That’s one heck of an investment.”
Revenue bonds provided $150 million for a new hospital on campus.
UTMB has one of only three Level I trauma centers in the region and was named the top trauma center in the nation before Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, putting the center out of commission.
“This is also a win for Houston, because with UTMB’s trauma center being down and offline, the two trauma centers in Houston have been inundated,” Eiland said.
Emergency room traffic at Mainland Medical Center in Texas City, located in Galveston County, has increased 40 percent since UTMB’s layoffs in November. Houston’s Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center has seen a 25 percent increase.
“If you need to get to a Level I trauma center, you need to get there and not be sent somewhere else,” Eiland said. “Hopefully, this will be getting UTMB’s center back to Level I by Jan. 1, which will relieve pressure on the Houston health care system.”
Eiland shared Raimer’s enthusiasm for the outcome, despite the final amount given being several million dollars short of his original plan.
“Fourteen million out of 1.3 billion is close enough for government work,” he said.
WHO wants to have a new inexperience physician in their live after all the unexpected changes over the last year? Can someone address this situation with the power to be and in the new? PLEASE