CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County Judge Connie Scott's committee dedicated to finding a long-term solution for the Emergency Medicine Residency Program will be expanded and made permanent.
This happened during Wednesday's regularly scheduled commissioners court meeting, where Pct. 2 commissioner Joe A. Gonzalez had added an agenda item proposing its dissolution.
"I just don't think the County should be driving this," Gonzalez said. "Y'all can have your committees if you want. Commissioners can go where it wants to go, like, if I want to go to a Spohn meeting because they invited me to go I can go. I'm not representing the County, I'm representing myself. I just go."
Doctors who attended the meeting were confused by Gonzalez's objection to the committee, given how hard county commissioners have fought to keep the ER residency program alive.
"I find it odd, given the security given to ER training thus far, that commissioner Gonzalez would want to dissolve this committee given his past history of dedication to the health care of citizens to Nueces county," Dr. Michael Brodeur said. "I find it odd."
The Nueces County Hospital District and CHRISTUS Spohn Health Systems finalized a six-year agreement for the Emergency Medicine Residency Program to the tune of $21 million in December. They did this with the help of the Emergency Medicine Committee which was organized by the County last year in order to keep the program in our area.
The county votes on a new budget every two years. Pct. 3 commissioner John Marez said despite that, he believes the six-year agreement between CHRISTUS Spohn and the Hospital District is a good one.
"We're lucky that we got resolved so quickly as it did when the issue first was discovered back in October, but if Spohn was not able to make the finances work, then we need as much time to find another hospital system that is willing to come in and to take over this," he said.
That's what the county's Emergency Medicine Committee was tasked with, along with a subcommittee to help find outside partners who may be interested in continuing the program in the future.
That's part of the reason some commissioners were eager for the committee to stay intact.
"This committee has become the model for advocacy," Pct. 4 commissioner Brent Chesney said Tuesday. "Not only in Nueces County but around the country. In fact, I'm going to go the opposite direction. I'm excited it's on the agenda because I'm going to ask to expand this committee and make it a permanent committee and make it an expanded committee to where we deal with all kinds of different issues once we get this one resolved."
In the meantime, the program will continue to be housed and run by CHRISTUS Spohn for the next six years.
Brodeur, who is in charge of training in the CHRISTUS Spohn program said he hopes it's just the beginning.
"I want to look forward to 20 years into the future and make sure that we are preserving emergency medicine care at the pinnacle of what the current edge of training is," he said. "And the way we do that is maintaining the training program down here."
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