One year after Hurricane Ike slammed into the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, flooding the island campus with anywhere from six inches to six feet of water and causing $710 million in damages, the medical school’s diagnosis looks good.
Within months of the storm, UTMB was ready to handle dangerous biological agents again, but the same could not be said about patients. The John Sealy Hospital, the school’s main source of income, was shuttered after the storm. It eventually reopened, but at only a fraction of its initial capacity. Now, the Texas legislature has earmarked $150 million in direct funds to increase John Sealy’s capacity back to its pre-Ike levels of 550 beds. (Houston Press)
That money is only a small slice of the $1.4 billion in total funding currently committed for rebuilding UTMB. Other benefactors include the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Sealy & Smith Foundation of Galveston (a charitable local trust), and Community Services Block Grant funds (a federal funding scheme). That’s on top of the $1.1 billion two-year operating budget recently approved by the state. (Houston Chronicle)
The medical school still has some outstanding wounds, however. After firing around 2,400 employees last November, including more than 120 professors, UTMB is now facing scrutiny from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) for allegedly invoking financial hardship as an excuse to undermine the tenure process. (Full disclosure: This was a story I covered when I used to work for The Scientist magazine.) AAUP investigation committee members met with University of Texas officials in Austin earlier this week to discuss the mass layoffs, according to the Texas Faculty Association (TFA) blog.
UTMB is also wrapping up hearings with professors who appealed their terminations. (Again, a story I covered.) So far, two faculty members have won their appeals, 26 have lost, and one is still awaiting a decision. (TFA blog)
“There is still a long way to go,” writes State Senator Steve Ogden in the Houston Chronicle. “[B]ut as everyone does their part, UTMB can be better than it ever was.”
Image: NOAA