Daily News Misses the Point on UTMB Construction

The Galveston County Daily News' Heber Taylor has completely missed the point in his opinion piece. He talks about the construction of a surgical tower but does not talk about where the tower will be built. He slipped into a semantic trap laid long ago when UT & UTMB administrators spoke about rebuilding UTMB bigger and better than before but never talked about where that new surgical tower would go up. If it is built in League City, the Galveston campus will be doomed to the fate of a small community hospital. As readers may recall, the size of many hospital rooms on the Galveston campus have been doubled, which would have the effect of cutting patient capacity. UTMB needs a large hospital on the island to support a medical school on the island.

To answer your question, Heber, yes, you are being overly optimistic. Appearing below is a comment from a Daily News reader responding to Mr. Taylor's opinion piece.

Timing, money and a surgical tower

I think our politicians told many of you what you wanted to hear. But slowly, we are catching on that it just ain't true. No tossing good money after bad. I predict that UTMB Galveston will eventually be a very small hospital, funded by Sealy and Smith. Lip service by UT regents. Facility is moving up the highway. Please. Pay attention.