Friday September 21, 2001

TMC, UMC face multi-million dollar deficits

The Tucson City Council voted unanimously Monday not to fund the trauma centers at Tucson Medical Center and University Medical Center money to help cover a nearly $5-million combined deficit.

"We cannot use public money to fund a private enterprise," said City Council member Carol West. "Anyhow, we don't have the funding to do something like that."

The centers asked for $4.8 million - $3.3 million for TMC and $1.5 million for UMC - to maintain their 24-hour trauma units.

"For the last five months, we have been visiting with officials at all levels," said Jack Jewett, TMC's senior vice president for public policy. "In the next 30 days, we're going to have to make a business decision. The big question we're faced with is how we're going to continue providing the level of trauma care that we've been giving for 14 years."

The UMC trauma center's crisis isn't as serious, but John Duval, UMC chief operating officer, said he is concerned about an overload at UMC if TMC's trauma center goes down.

"The issue for UMC is if TMC leaves the playing field, then we'll have a domino effect that gets everyone in the end," he said.

Duval attributes the financial deficit to a variety of factors, including the extensive number of uninsured or underinsured individuals in Arizona, staff shortages and the resultant spiraling labor costs and uncompensated health care given to the immigrant population.

"We have no quarrel from a humanitarian perspective," Duvall said. "But we are taking losses."

The city of Tucson has a $25 million "undesignated, unreserved fund," but West said that money may be required to cover an anticipated economic downturn caused by the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

"It's a better idea to get together with all the other entities in Southern Arizona to see what we can get done (for the trauma centers)," she said.

A task force of local, state and federal officials and leaders will be assembled by the city to research and assist in solving the problem.

Duval said UMC looks forward to engaging the process. He also said the proportion of the problem is large enough for the Legislature to take on the issue and make some changes to help stabilize funding for the trauma center.