The recent news that the UTMB Hospital will remain in Galveston and is now rehiring laid off workers was great to hear not just for Galveston but for the larger region, which really needed the facilities. Now that this one is back, perhaps we can get similar news for the another Island hospital.
The national Shriners leadership may vote this week on a proposal to keep open the storm-damaged Galveston Shriners Hospital for Children and its world-renowned burn center.The vote will come at the insistence of local Shriners, who ask for a financial review of the organization's entire 22-hospital system to find places to cut or consolidate services "and preserve the most acclaimed burn care facility in the world."
If the leadership fails to open the hospital, closed since Hurricane Ike damaged the first floor, local Shriners have vowed to take the issue to the national convention this summer.
"We are just trying to get our hospital reopened," said Shriner Tommy Lambright, a member of the Galveston hospital's governing board.
Shriners Galveston is the only burn hospital in the Houston region verified by the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons.
The failure to open the burn center puts the lives of children at risk, said Shriner Duncan McDowell of Beaumont. "How many children will die in the future if we fail to get it back in service?" McDowell asked.
An important reason for closing the Shriners Galveston hospital was the initial decision by the University of Texas Regents to downsize the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Lambright said.Shriners was staffed by UTMB doctors who devoted a percentage of their time to Shriners' patients and were reimbursed by the Children's Hospital. Herndon, chief of staff at Shriners Childrens Hospital, also heads UTMB's Blocker Burn Unit.
Shriners and UTMB researchers often share multimillion dollar research grants.
Under pressure from the Texas Legislature, the regents reversed policy two weeks ago and committed to rebuilding UTMB. A letter from UTMB Provost Dr. Garland Anderson reassured the national Shriners leadership of UTMB's continued support and pointed to research offices supplied to Shriners researchers at no cost.
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Local Shriners sent their proposal last week to the national leadership and to all 1,163 Shriners delegates to the July 5 convention. A vote by the delegates would overturn a decision by the board.
Raoul Frevel Sr., a member of the national hospital board and a supporter of opening the Galveston hospital, will put the proposal forward for a vote during a three-day joint meeting of the two Shriner boards that begins today, Lambright said.
Shriner's Burn Institute is a national wonder and one of this state's unique medical resources: It justifies the continued existence of UTMB in Galveston, not the other way around.
So, here is a political-economic problem for all of Texas: By virtue of the improvident growth in state-support over the last quarter-century, we may well now have (a) one too many unspecialized undergraduate medical schools with (b) way too many post-graduate specialty training and arcane research facilities.
There has been emulation and duplication, never a serious plan.
So, a lot of over-built, poorly maintained, and grossly understaffed facilities in Texas are now status goods which may not be economically or financially sustainable from a public or private, regulatory or market standpoint.
Neither cringing liberals nor bombastic conservatives in the Texas Legislature fully appreciate the situation or have a clue what to do. So, unaccountable officials will begin to impose constraints arbitrarily(a) by making across-the-board "cuts", (b) by enforcing euphemistic "policies" of selective neglect, (c) by signing off on financial "innovation" bordering on fraud, and, of course, (d) by exploiting hurricanes or appealing to other Acts of God for justifying their own decisions and, doubtless, bonuses.
For all the constitutional limits on his or her power, a responstible and influential Governor could still fix the problem with a vision of the next quarter-century, the sort of society, polity, and economy Texas could have.
It might include:
Ending the unspecialized, "undergraduate" role of UTMB altogether and passing training and research in primary practice responsibilities to UTHSC in Houston; ...
On the other hand, not just restoring but extending the role of Shriners' Burn Institute by concentrating a complex of specialty training and research at UTMB including (a) moving the UT School of Public Health and (b) consolidating a variety of Occupational Health and Safety operations in Galveston under TAMU auspices.
Those are higher value roles with more potential economic return. But, they require an uncommon measure of political responsibility for prudent planning and efficient use of public and private funds -- more than just pork and status goods.
Democrats used to deliberate such important questions and exercise decisive leadership in matters of great and lasting import. Now, they mostly wring their hands and wail, "ain't it awful".
The GOP just manically flips from the utopian to the dystopian.
Where are the patriots?
Posted by: John Robert BEHRMAN on March 24, 2009 11:08 AM