By Carol Baass Sowa
Today's Catholic
SAN ANTONIO • Leaders at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health Care (CSRHC) announced on June 18 that, in partnership with the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHSC), they were embarking on a planning process leading to the development of the city’s first, freestanding, nonprofit academic children’s hospital.
Don Beeler, president and CEO of CSRHC, noted that recent discussion in the media had made it clear the community was looking for a leader to develop just such a hospital. CHRISTUS Santa Rosa has been a leader in children’s healthcare for 50 years, he said, and has been focusing on this issue since the revision and enhancement of their affiliation agreement with UTHSC in 2004.
This affiliation led to the addition of 12 new pediatric specialty programs at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital (CSRCH), including the Center for Miracles, the congenital heart program, the kidney transplant program and the soon to be implemented liver transplant program. In addition, the hospital has recruited 20 new pediatric specialists representing over 13 different specialties.
“Therefore,” he said, “we are announcing today that we have already taken steps to solidify our intent to meet the development of an academic, nonprofit, freestanding children’s hospital to serve the youngest and the most vulnerable citizens of our community and the surrounding area.”
He reported CRSRHC and UTHSC are commissioning a comprehensive feasibility study which will determine if such a hospital is in line with community needs and support and what would be the most appropriate location in order to ensure access for all. Outcome of this study will be announced by Jan. 1, 2010.
Dr. Randall Day, of the board of directors of CSRHC noted that he was one of thousands of physicians who received training and experience and learned to take care of children because of their experience at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa and the affiliation between CSRHC and UTHSC.
He related that in 1968 Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital became the academic teaching hospital for UTHSC, with this partnership being expanded, renewed and enhanced with a 20-year agreement made in 2004, an enhancement of an earlier affiliation dating to the opening of the medical school in San Antonio. This, he said, “set a stage for what we dreamed to be the academic children’s hospital.”
Since that time, he related, specialty clinic services for children have expanded to include the pediatric heart surgery program in 2005, which has performed 250 procedures in the past year. The new kidney program has seen nine transplants in the past month, with 15 waiting to be done. He further noted they are the only organized children’s facility offering extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and created the titanium rib implant, with physicians and surgeons from all over the world coming here “to learn how to implant titanium ribs and save the lives of children who previously had to succumb to their disease.”
Besides offering a “bench to bedside” clinical research center in their facility, he added that they are the state’s leading center for treating abused and neglected children through the Center for Miracles and serve children from 67 Texas counties, 33 states and multiple countries from around the world.
“We are proud,” he said, “of the many extraordinary specialty pediatric programs and services that have been developed or provided at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital in conjunction with the University of Texas Health Science Center and other San Antonio private practice physicians.”