GALVESTON — Island leaders, including State Rep. Craig Eiland, are hoping dozens of white-coated University of Texas Medical Branch students filling the halls of the state capitol will encourage legislators to support plans to restore the institution’s funding.
Eiland and student members of the Texas Medical Association are organizing a bus trip to Austin on Tuesday to show lawmakers their decision effects more than just the island’s residents.
Business and community leaders from Galveston plan to make their own lobbying trip to the capitol March 18 to show their support for the medical branch.
It’s time students speak up and have their voices heard, said Mike Leasure, a first-year medical student who is leading efforts to persuade his classmates to make the trip.
Until now, students have had very little involvement in the efforts to bring the medical branch back to its pre-Hurricane Ike condition, he said.
“Most students have been relatively passive about it and I don’t think that’s right,” he said. “We’re kind of called as budding medical professionals to stand up for ourselves and this institution.”
Hurricane Ike left the medical branch with $710 million in damage and lost revenue when it made landfall Sept. 13. Two months later, the institution’s leaders cut almost 3,000 jobs and reduced the number of beds at John Sealy Hospital from about 500 to 200 to help lower expenses.
Eiland’s overall plan for the institution’s recovery, endorsed by the University of Texas Board of Regents on Tuesday, would bring the hospital back to full capacity, restore the trauma center and renew pre-storm plans to build a $250 million surgical tower on the island.
But even with the regents’ blessing, the medical branch still needs a financial commitment from legislators before any rebuilding can begin.
Eiland’s bill, House Bill 6, would give the medical branch $255 million to cover costs related to Ike damage.
The bill also would allocate $6.5 million for Texas A&M University at Galveston, $491,000 for Galveston College and $275,000 for College of the Mainland.
Under Eiland’s plan, the medical branch would get another $169 million to cover the revenue it lost while its hospital and clinics remained closed during the weeks after the storm.
Tuesday, students will begin and end their trip to the capitol with individual meetings with legislators. In between, Eiland will recognize the group from the floor of the house chamber.
Despite some initial passivity toward the institution’s funding woes, Leasure thinks his classmates are starting to pay more attention.
He doesn’t yet know how many students will make the trip, but he’s planning for at least 50.
“Hopefully we’ve awakened a sleeping giant,” he said.
The health of Galveston is tied to the health of the medical branch, said Ann Masel, who works for island accounting firm DRDA and has helped coordinate the students’ trip.
“We need (the medical branch) to be strong and viable on the island in order for the island to be strong,” she said.
