For a few decades, the nuns of the now defunct St. Anthony’s Hospital allowed the Texas Tech School of Medicine in Amarillo to house - at no costs - its family medicine clinic in the hospital.
Tech’s free days are over with the hospital, which merged with High Plains Baptist Hospital in the mid 1990s to form Baptist St. Anthony’s Health System.
Tech’s Family and Community Medicine Clinic this week moved into new digs on the fifth floor of its School of Medicine building at 1400 S. Coulter St. The school added a floor to the building in the past year, a project that cost the state and its taxpayers $7.7 million.
A few years ago, BSA asked the school to vacate the 30-exam room space so the hospital could use it.
Should the public be more critical of the move or see this as a proper move for the hospital?
BSA has long been criticized by some in the Amarillo medical community for not doing enough to fund health-care programs for the low-income.
Certainly, not all of Tech’s patients are low-income, but Tech physicians are some of the only ones in Amarillo who will see new Medicaid patients.
Its pediatrics department loses hundreds of thousands of dollars a year providing care to children of qualified indigents for the Amarillo Hospital District.
Providing free space to the school also saves state taxpayers money in rent and building projects.
Tech’s free days are over with the hospital, which merged with High Plains Baptist Hospital in the mid 1990s to form Baptist St. Anthony’s Health System.
Tech’s Family and Community Medicine Clinic this week moved into new digs on the fifth floor of its School of Medicine building at 1400 S. Coulter St. The school added a floor to the building in the past year, a project that cost the state and its taxpayers $7.7 million.
A few years ago, BSA asked the school to vacate the 30-exam room space so the hospital could use it.
Should the public be more critical of the move or see this as a proper move for the hospital?
BSA has long been criticized by some in the Amarillo medical community for not doing enough to fund health-care programs for the low-income.
Certainly, not all of Tech’s patients are low-income, but Tech physicians are some of the only ones in Amarillo who will see new Medicaid patients.
Its pediatrics department loses hundreds of thousands of dollars a year providing care to children of qualified indigents for the Amarillo Hospital District.
Providing free space to the school also saves state taxpayers money in rent and building projects.
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