FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 11, 2007
CONTACT: Geoff Embler or Matt Mackowiak
Sen. Hutchison Announces New $67 Million Level One Polytrauma Center to be Built by the VA in San Antonio
VA’s New Construction to Begin Next Year on Audie Murphy Campus
WASHINGTON -- Texas’ senior Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R–TX) today announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will build a new $67 million Level One Polytrauma Facility in San Antonio on the Audie Murphy VA hospital campus.
Sen. Hutchison secured funding for the VA to build a fifth Level One Polytrauma Center in the 2007 Iraq War Supplemental, providing an initial $30 million in funding for new construction. The bill also contained language that Sen. Hutchison secured directing the facility be centrally located to better meet the travel needs of veterans. In that bill Sen. Hutchison also supported $45 million to upgrade the four existing polytrauma centers in Tampa, Minneapolis, Palo Alto, CA, and Richmond, VA.
On April 19, 2007, after the supplemental bill was enacted into law, Sen. Hutchison sent a letter to VA Secretary Jim Nicholson asking the VA to consider San Antonio as the location for the new Polytrauma Center since San Antonio will soon become the largest concentration of active duty personnel and veterans in the country, and the investment already being made by the U.S. Department of Defense that will enhance veteran care.
“San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the country, and with the outstanding facilities and community efforts made in military health care and research in the area, I felt we must deliver a new Level One Polytrauma Center to this community,” Sen. Hutchison said.
San Antonio is already home to the National Trauma Institute (NTI), the first Congressionally-funded joint military-civilian trauma institute in the United States, which Sen. Hutchison helped create. NTI coordinates academic, community, and military resources to most effectively serve trauma victims and their families. Participating in research efforts with NTI are Brooke Army Medical Center, Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center, University Hospital, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research. The NTI received $1 million in federal funding for FY 2007 and is slated to receive $2 million in the FY 2008 Defense Appropriations bill which was approved by the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee today.
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, which Sen. Hutchison managed on the floor as ranking member of the subcommittee, passed the Senate last Thursday. In that bill Sen. Hutchison secured $577.5 million for San Antonio-area military installations, including $506 million for Fort Sam Houston. Sen. Hutchison included critically important report language which required the VA to evaluate the potential benefits of co-locating a new Level One Polytrauma Center with an Army facility in a location with a high concentration of active duty service personnel, which gave a competitive advantage to San Antonio for selection.
“San Antonio deserves this facility because it is the center of military medicine and so many active duty service personnel and veterans live in the area,” Sen. Hutchison said.
Level One Polytrauma Centers, managed by the VA, are designed to be the most advanced hospitals in the world and capable of providing unique first-class service designed specifically for veterans with multiple serious injuries.
Sen. Hutchison is the Ranking Member of Senate Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and is a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
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