Wednesday September 26, 2001

Officials at UMC's Trauma Center have requested approximately $1.5 million from the Board of Supervisors and state Legislature to prepare for an anticipated rush of patients when TMC closes its trauma center on Dec. 31.

John Duval, chief operating officer of University Medical Center, 1501 N. Campbell Ave., said yesterday morning at the Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting that this money would be used to foot "readiness costs" - which pay to keep staff and equipment available around the clock - at UMC, one of Tucson's two level one trauma centers.

Though more than $13 million is associated with the trauma center, Duval stressed that UMC and Tucson Medical Center, 5301 E. Grant Road, did not ask legislators to completely underwrite the trauma system, but rather to help pay for just the readiness costs - a combined total of $4.8 million for the two trauma centers.

He added that TMC alone needs nearly $3.3 million to sustain its readiness costs. Faced with the high cost of continuing, TMC officials announced Monday it would close its trauma center at the end of the year.

"We can continue to play the less-resource card for only so long," Duval said. "Somehow, this community needs to marshal its resources to keep two trauma centers open."

Duval, along with Jack Jewett, senior vice president of TMC, worked side-by-side for several months to bring information to policy makers on both the state and local level.

Although the Tucson City Council voted Sept. 17 against funding the trauma centers, Duval said it is still necessary to gain immediate local backing because the state legislative agenda likely will not be able to deal with the issue for at least a year.

"If the legislative timetable means it will not be addressed until calendar year 2002 and if TMC's trauma center is exiting effective 2001, at the end of the day, it's Tucson's trauma centers that are being affected," Duval said. "This community needs to come together to solve this problem."

But supervisors said handing over needed funding is not an easy task considering the economic recession impacting the nation and especially Arizona.

"It is unfortunate that we left a crack open to make you think the county could afford to give you this money," Ann Day, a Republican supervisor on the board, told Duval at the meeting. "Your chances of success with the Legislature are between slim and none. (Pima) County is in no financial position to help out."

TMC's decision to close its trauma center leaves UMC with an overwhelming burden as the only level one trauma center in the Tucson area - five level one centers serve the Phoenix area alone.

The decision to close TMC's trauma unit resulted mainly from the loss of millions of dollars from the high cost of treating uninsured patients and undocumented illegal entrants.

UMC and TMC have operated a joint trauma center program for more than 15 years. Duval said without the help of TMC's trauma center, UMC's current resources will be unable to handle the influx of patients.

"We believe we can't be Tucson's only level one trauma center," he said. "We'll have to reduce our care in the absence of a partner."

No immediate solutions have been reached regarding funding for the UMC trauma center. Duval said partnering up with another hospital, such as Kino Community Hospital, 2800 E. Ajo Way, would still not accommodate the Tucson area to the capacity needed.

"It would be very expensive to recruit the physicians and staff necessary to bring Kino up to full level one status in the definition of what that means today," he said. "This is no negative statement in respect to Kino, it's just a very expensive venture to do that."