Need your politcal help, OSU Medical Center facing funding shortage.

[VitruvianDoc]

If the Oklahoma State University Medical Center in downtown Tulsa does not receive an adequate level of funding from the Legislature this session, then the hospital will have to close. If it receives only an inadequate amount, services will have to be drastically reduced.

If the hospital were to close, the residents and medical students training at the OSU Center for Health Sciences' College of Osteopathic Medicine would face an uncertain future - and maybe no future at all in Oklahoma. And the remaining Tulsa hospitals would face a huge influx of new patients, many of them uninsured.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/article.aspx?subjectid=211&articleid=20130210_211_G1_CUTLIN422671

I am a current medical student at OSU facing the prospect of my post-graduate residency education being shut down forcing me to most likely go out of state to finish my education. Many other students/residents share this bleak future should the hospital shut down. This happened 5 years ago when the legislator balked at providing adequate funding (though OU's hospital network receives a 38 million yearly grant that doesn't have to be renewed) and luckly a combo of private/public funding saved the hospital. However since OSU is required to re-apply every 5 years, the same scenario is being faced again. Please contact your congressman/woman/lobbyist/etc and make them aware of the issue.

This just isnt a battle of saving the hospital, but saving the ~175 residents it trains and provides to Oklahoma, a state which is already 49th in healthcare and lacking an adequate amount of physicians.

 

[vvvvvvv]

The article refers to the funding as essential for federal matching grants.

What federal matching grants does the OSU Center for Health Sciences' College of Osteopathic Medicine receive? Or the OSU Medical Authority (which I assume is over the OSU Center for Health Sciences, considering the correlation between funding)?

Just sayin' because the Tulsa World numbers don't match the numbers from the State which makes me skeptical...

Not questioning you - questioning the validity of the article. I've BTDT with administrators subjecting employees and students to their own flavor of Washington Monument Syndrome...

 

[VitruvianDoc]

I dont know the exact numbers as to where OSU gets its funding but what I do know is bottom line the hospital needs 18.5 million a year to operate in its current state. The state has offered 2.5 million. There is some possibility of private money being offered but nothing in writing till march.

 

[BobBarker]

The patient volume is too low for the hospital to make any money or provide adequate training for the residents. The residents would be better off if they were rolled into the OU programs in Tulsa and worked out of the saints hospitals.

 

[SMS]

Last time I looked, OSU had something over $300 million in their endowment.

Maybe they should dig deeper in their own pocket and look at ALL options before they reach deeper into mine.

 

[BobBarker]

Last time I looked, OSU had something over $300 million in their endowment.

Maybe they should dig deeper in their own pocket and look at ALL options before they reach deeper into mine.

The medical center is essentially unrelated to Stillwater.

 

[SMS]

The medical center is essentially unrelated to Stillwater.

Interesting. Then I retract my previous comment....thanks.

 

[bettingpython]

If OSU medical center closes then the surrounding hospitals will have to pick up the slack serving the indigent population. You will see rising costs of service and even longer wait times in emergency rooms. It was estimated in 2008/2009 that the losses incurred serving an indigent population would cause undue financial burdens to the other Tulsa hospitals.

In 2009 the area Tulsa hospitals all kicked in a substantial amount of funding for the public trust, St. John froze raises that year across the entire health system to help keep the medical center open. OSU kicked in something like 45million that year as well.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=17&articleid=20120831_17_A11_CUTLIN953730

I know it sounds a little like a liberal but having a public hospital is a good thing.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/a...icleid=20130210_211_G1_CUTLIN422671&allcom=1#