FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 28, 2007
CONTACT: Geoff Embler or Matt Mackowiak
Sen. Hutchison Delivers Remarks on the New $67 Million VA Polytrauma Center to be Built 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 delivered remarks at the announcement of a new $67 million U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Level One Polytrauma Facility in San Antonio, to be built on the Audie Murphy VA hospital campus.
“I am proud to have secured a new facility that will honor the service of our American heroes,” Sen. Hutchison said. “This center will provide world-class service, meeting the needs of our newest veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Sen. Hutchison secured funding in the 2007 Iraq War Supplemental for the VA to build its fifth Level One Polytrauma Center. The bill also contained language that Sen. Hutchison authored directing the facility be centrally located to better meet the travel needs of veterans. In that bill Sen. Hutchison additionally 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.
“San Antonio is one of the nation’s premier centers of veterans health and military medicine,” Sen. Hutchison said. “As growing numbers of our veterans and active duty servicemembers make Texas their home, San Antonio is the natural choice for a new polytrauma facility.”
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 Fiscal Year 2007 (FY) and is slated to receive $2 million in the FY 2008 Defense Appropriations bill.
The 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 September 6. 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.
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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