epcounty.com - Commissioner Precinct 2

El Paso County Commissioner Pct. 2
Veronica Escobar

Children's hospital hopes: County may allow public vote
By Erica Molina Johnson / El Paso Times
El Paso Times

Lisa Rogers has rushed her 14-year-old daughter to emergency rooms dozens of times during the girl's life, and the Clint mother hopes one day there will be a children's hospital that can care for Jenna.
"We've had everything from going to an emergency room in town and thinking once we got her to a hospital we're safe and they can help her, but we've had emergency rooms not staffed for pediatrics," she said.
Rogers has sought care from doctors out of town and has pleaded with local adult specialists to consider her daughter as a patient because there was no local pediatric specialist. Jenna remains undiagnosed, but has suffered from hearing, speech and vision problems and has required surgery for problems such as a serious intestinal emergency.
On Thursday, Commissioners Court could decide during a special meeting to allow the public to vote whether a children's hospital should be built at Thomason Hospital.
A children's hospital "could mean the difference between my daughter living and dying," Rogers said.
She and the El Paso County Hospital District are hoping court members will follow through on promises to put the hospital's $120.1 million construction on the ballot this November.
"The children's hospital is something the voters need to approve and I wholeheartedly support it," Commissioner Luis Sariñana said.
The proposal calls for voters to fund the $120.1 million construction costs, and the separately licensed children's hospital would pay its own operating costs.
"We want to be able to provide pediatric subspecialist care to the community," Thomason Hospital CEO Jim Valenti said.
"If the public helps us build it, we will operate it without tax dollars," Valenti said.
Although the 140-bed hospital would be built on the top floors of a mother/baby unit to be constructed at Thomason, it would be an independent nonprofit, including a separate management structure, governing board, medical staff model and separate departments. The only shared areas between the children's hospital and Thomason Hospital would be trauma, housekeeping, dietary and maintenance.
"For each child walking into the hospital, the whole idea is they don't have to cross into adult traffic," said Dennece Knight, director of the Thomason Health Foundation and the children's hospital project director.
Its status as a separately licensed children's hospital would allow for greater Medicaid reimbursement, as well as other additional reimbursements.
Opponents of the hospital said the construction is an unnecessary expense because Providence Memorial Hospital already operates the Children's Hospital at Providence, which fills its third floor.
"As far as we are concerned, a children's hospital at any other hospital is not necessary," said Irene Chavez, chief operating officer at Providence Memorial Hospital and its children's hospital. "It's a duplication of the services we already offer here."
But supporters said the Providence unit is not separately licensed and cannot do what the new hospital would, including attract physicians.
There are currently 24 local pediatric subspecialists, Knight said. She said other cities that have built children's hospitals increase the number of subspecialists. Valenti said he hopes the number of pediatric subspecialists in El Paso could at least triple by 2015.
Phil Rivera, Thomason's chief financial officer, said a good goal for the opening of the children's hospital is to bring El Paso in line with state and national averages for pediatrician to child ratios. In El Paso, there is one pediatrician for every 3,532 children. That compares with one for every 2,421 children in Texas and one for every 1,769 children in the United States.
"You now only have one or no pediatric physicians in each specialty," Valenti said.
He said the first move if the hospital is approved by voters is to start recruiting physicians, but Chavez said this is no easy task.
"Staffing is a challenge even today. If we add a large, duplicated children's hospital to compete with this children's hospital (at Providence), clearly it will have an impact on staffing," she said.
Valenti said the district has already received interest from doctors in the proposed facility.
He said if the construction is approved, the impact on a $100,000 home would be about $2.38 per month or about $30 per year. If approved, the hospital district would provide $30 million to help the children's hospital get off the ground, paying for items such as salaries and recruiting. Valenti said the money would be reimbursed as the children's hospital began operations.
Rivera said the children's hospital would be operating in the black soon after it opens.
"That's why it's not a burden on the citizens," Valenti said. He said state and federal governments provide special reimbursements to hospitals such as the one proposed.
But Providence officials have said there is no need in the community for the new hospital because many existing pediatric unit beds are empty, particularly in the summer.
"Now we have currently two units that are closed because there is no inpatient children's need," Chavez said.
But Valenti said the need exists and will grow.
"Pediatric care is always (going to be) busier in the fall, winter and spring ... (but) our community is growing," he said.
Knight said expected growth includes people coming to Fort Bliss from the Base Realignment and Closure, which is bringing in nearly 20,000 soldiers between 2005 and 2011 and at least as many family members.
Other factors will include natural population growth, patient visits from Mexico and New Mexico, and curtailing the number of families who leave the area for pediatric care.
Valenti said about 900 families seek care elsewhere in Texas and he estimated another 900 seek care in other states such as Arizona and California.
Admissions at the proposed children's hospital are expected to be about 4,294 by 2015, up from the 2,675 recorded in 2004 at Thomason.
Valenti said the new hospital would not take patients from other hospitals, as opponents have stated.
"In any market where there's a for-profit and a children's hospital comes in, at the end of the day, both are still there," Knight said. She said the current local models, including the Children's Hospital at Providence, are pediatric nursing units.
Since the El Paso County Hospital District's Board of Managers approved sending the plan to Commissioners Court earlier this year, the district has worked to educate community groups about the project.
"It will be the first true children's hospital," board chairman Ron Acton said. "It will be associated with Texas Tech, which is a teaching hospital, and it will give us an opportunity to have all the specialists that a city this size deserves."
Since the proposal was approved by the district's board, several groups, including the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce, have announced their support. Richard Fleager, who chaired the chamber's Health Care Task Force, said the endorsement came after more than six hours of meetings with stakeholders, subcommittee meetings and extensive research.
"I think it's going to be very good for El Paso," Fleager said. "The (local) pediatric subspecialists indicated that El Paso without a doubt needs more subspecialists. The only way they are going to be able to bring them to El Paso is to have a children's hospital."
If approved by the court and voters, ground breaking would be around late summer of 2008 and the hospital would open by summer 2011.
"It is in its own way an economic development driver," said Commissioner Veronica Escobar. "What we'll see very soon after it's up and running is families coming to El Paso for health care. They have to stay in hotels. They have to buy food. They expend resources here locally and that helps our community."
Many expect Thursday's meeting to be packed.
"I'm 99.9 percent certain we'll have a unanimous vote to put it on the ballot based on what the commissioners and the judge have said publicly," Escobar said. "Once we have approved putting it on the ballot, the work really begins."
Erica Molina Johnson may be reached at emolina@elpasotimes.com; 546-6132.