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Health Services District Moving Forward

Posted on: Monday, 27 February 2006, 15:01 CST

By Melissa Mcever, The Brownsville Herald, Texas

Feb. 27--McALLEN - February 27, 2006 - Some of the pieces are coming together to make the Rio Grande Valley Health Services District operational at last.

At a workshop and meeting Saturday, the district's board discussed plans to contract with health-care providers to pro-vide services once the district's two indigent-health care clinics are open. Board members hope to begin accepting propos-als from local and possibly state or national health-care systems within a few months, said spokeswoman Petra Reyna.

Although the district will continue to oversee operations once the clinics open, it will contract with hospitals, federally qualified health clinics or universities to provide health care, board members said.

State officials also are moving closer to approving preliminary design plans for the two clinics, although they are re-questing additional documents from the district first. The Legislative Budget Board has approved preliminary plans for the Texas Center for Infectious Disease in San Antonio, but postponed for now approval on the Hidalgo and Cameron county clinics, reported Nick Dauster, legislative liaison for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Despite the delay, Reyna said she was optimistic that the plans would be approved soon.

"I think we're all on the same page," she said Saturday.

After the plans are approved, the district will be in for a short wait. A rider to the state's appropriations bill says a con-struction contract can't be awarded for the Cameron and Hidalgo county clinics until a contract is awarded for the Texas Center for Infectious Disease. Officials likely will approve a TCID construction contract in about eight months, according to state documents.

The district also will receive Hidalgo County's long-delayed tobacco funds this week. Hidalgo County had owed the dis-trict more than $900,000 in tobacco-settlement funds, but arguments with the district on how the money should be spent had delayed its delivery.

"You can pick up the check on Tuesday," Humberto Garza of Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia's office, told the board.

Both counties agreed in a 2002 concurrent order to allocate tobacco money and county indigent-health funds for the dis-trict's operation. The district needs those funds to continue moving forward on its plans, board members have said.

The district now awaits final state approval of its transition plan, which outlines how the district will fund operations and what services it will provide.

Board member William Card said he hoped the decisions made recently will lead to lasting progress in the district's de-velopment.

"I want to make sure we don't take these steps just to find out we have to take two steps back again," he said.

melissam@valleystar.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Brownsville Herald, Texas

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Source: The Brownsville Herald

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