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Shriners hospital to reopen Wednesday
By Rhiannon Meyers
The Daily News
Published November 3, 2009
GALVESTON — Galveston’s Shriners Hospital for Children will reopen Wednesday, more than a year after it was damaged in Hurricane Ike.
The hospital, known worldwide for advances in treating badly burned children, will resume services in phases, starting with reconstructive surgeries. The hospital should be fully operational by late December, Tommy Lambright, a Shriner from Texas City, said.
“We’re just tickled pink and excited,” he said.
The hospital, 815 Market St., closed after Hurricane Ike struck Galveston Sept. 13, 2008, flooding the 30-bed hospital. Although the hurricane damaged the hospital, it was a $3 billion shortfall in endowment funds caused by disarray in financial markets that threatened the hospital, former president and CEO Ralph Semb argued when he headed a drive to close six Shriners hospitals across the nation.
Shriners delegates ousted Semb during the national convention in July. At the same time, the delegates rejected Semb’s proposal to permanently close the six hospitals.
The hospital’s budget has been scaled back from $33 million to $25 million, and the staff has been cut from 325 employees to 125, Lambright said. Hospital officials hope to have 200 employees hired by mid-December when hospital is fully operational.
The budget cuts have forced Shriners to consider accepting third-party payment for treating children at the organization’s 22 hospitals, including the island hospital. Never in its 87-year history has Shriners charged to treat a child at hospitals specializing in burns, spinal cord injury and orthopedics. The only requirement is that patients be younger than 18 and treatable.
Lambright said Shriners are working to set up a system to accept insurance, but it could take months before the hospital is capable of accepting third-party payments.
“There’s a lot of work that has to be done,” he said. “We’ve never even had a billing department or anything. It’s not just like flipping a switch and making it happen.”
Even when the hospital starts accepting insurance, Shriners will continue to accept all children at all of its hospitals regardless of whether they had insurance or other ability to pay.
Patients who were treated at the Galveston hospital before Ike have been receiving care at the Shriners Houston hospital for the past year.
Those patients will be transitioned back to Galveston when staff starts seeing patients Wednesday.
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Patients who want to schedule appointments may call 409-770-6998 or 888-215-3109.
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