Orange County is preparing to create a local hospital district, a government entity to build and operate a new hospital. Representatives of the cities, county, college, port, river authority and chemical plants, along with business leaders, met Friday to discuss the hospital situation.
Baptist Hospital of Southeast Texas announced last month the emergency room at the Orange hospital will close on Thursday.
“I can’t stress enough how important this is,” County Judge Brint Carlton said.
Orange City Manager Shawn Oubre, PhD., said having a hospital is more than providing health care to the community. Industries and businesses looking to move to a new place or expand want a hospital for employees and their families. Also, a hospital provides jobs for local citizens. Baptist Hospital-Orange was once one of the largest employers in the county.
The hospital system closed the in-patient services section in June 2015. The obstetrics unit closed in May 2013.
A hospital district is a separate governmental entity with taxing power. The Orange County Drainage District and the Orange County Port and Navigation District have been in operation for more than a half-century. They each have elected boards of directors and levy a small property tax rate.
Oubre said “time is of the essence” to get the process moving. The Texas Legislature must approve formation of a special district. The legislature will begin session this month and will not have another session until 2019. He said State Representative Dade Phelan and State Senator Robert Nichols will sponsor the bill.
Local entities, including the cities, county and school districts, and chambers of commerce will be passing resolutions supporting the formation of the special district. Gene Bouillion, executive director for the Port and Navigation District, said he will have the resolution before his board next week.
Voters must approve the creation of the special district. “Every corner of the county is going to have to be supportive of this,” Carlton said.
Oubre said a hospital district will be able to “get access to federal funds.”
The city of Orange led an effort for a study of hospital needs. The 2015 study was based on 2014 information, Oubre said. He said the survey showed the people in the county use hospital medical care. People in Bridge City usually go to a Port Arthur hospital and people in Vidor go to a Beaumont hospital. A successful hospital will need to be centrally located in the county to draw patients from all areas.
The study suggested a hospital with 25 in-patient beds, two operating rooms, one radiology room, one CT scan room and one mobile MRI in the emergency room. The estimated cost was $59 million with land. The land could be donated or sold at a discount to lower the cost, Oubre said.
Oubre said a local contingency tried to get another hospital corporation to local in the county and tried to get private investors. He said if a hospital district is created, other groups may be interested in joining the local effort.
Creating a hospital district and building a new one could take three to five years. Oubre said if a hospital district is formed, a deal may be worked out to use the Baptist Hospital until a new one is built. Not having a hospital for three to five years will hurt economic development, he said.
“All that time it’s hard to market the county,” he said.
David Montagne, executive director of the Sabine River Authority based in Orange, said Orange County will be the largest county (in population) in the state without a hospital.
Steve Aguilar, a Chemical Row plant manager, said a hospital is critical for industry to take care of their employees. The county will need to get the details on a hospital district and how it will affect the plants before industry will support the effort.
Businesswoman Gisela Houseman suggested the county and cities could work to cut their tax rates maybe a penny to show citizens they are willing to cut back to support a hospital district.
Oubre said some things are too important to ignore. “I don’t like taxes either, but sometimes for the betterment of the community as a whole, everybody needs to chip in,” he said.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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