The Regents Respond
Scott Caven, chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, writes in response to Mimi Swartz’s column on UTMB.
1 comment
Monday, December 15th, 2008, 6:15 am
Bemused says:
Caven is a hack, a toady to Governor Perry, but in this case he seems to have a better grasp of reality than Mimi Swartz.
I graduated from nursing school at UTMB and worked there as well. I love UTMB and Galveston. But I'm not blind to the institution's problems.
I also worked at hospitals in Austin and at one time many of the surgeons and other healthcare professionals were all graduates of UTMB, because at one time UTMB was a superior institution. What happened to UTMB was the growth of medical facilities in Houston. Just as the port of Houston eventually surpassed the port of Galveston, the medical establishment in Houston became dominant over UTMB.
Mimi talks about UTMB's willingness to treat charity patients, something indeed Galveston has long done, serving as "county hospital" to the state. Without UTMB, however, presumably someone else will get that job. (Caven talks in his letter about funding for this kind of care and that is the real issue here.) Mimi talks about the people of Galveston needing a hospital but every small or mid-sized city in the state can make the same claim. Mimi doesn't mention the care for state prisoners that is provided in Galveston as well, but presumably someone else can do that too. We're told about the national-level bio lab in Galveston, but that s more a testimony to Bush's presence in the White House and tireless pork barrel politics by Senator Hutchison than anything else, just as the "Bridge to No Where" in Alaska was more a testament to Alaska's Congressional delegation than to good transportation planning. After all, isn't expensive, inefficient healthcare one of the reasons we're in trouble as a society today?
Finally, UTMB is in a physically-dangerous location, perhaps not the best place for a hospital to be. The Regents and the Legislature need to take a hard look at UTMB and not be swayed by its glorious past. Those days are over.
My Library
