CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Nueces County Hospital District and the CHRISTUS Spohn Health System have come to an agreement that will keep the only Emergency Medicine Residency Program at Spohn.
After 6 weeks of negotiations, the hospital district’s board of managers voted Friday to invest up to slightly more than $21 million into the program.
"The steps from now on are really a formality,” said hospital district CEO Jonny Hipp. “The hospital district approved the terms, so what will happen now, is that the lawyers will take the terms that were approved today and embed them in a formal contract. That contract will come back to the board for its final approval on December 12th."
He said that being able to keep this emergency medicine program in Corpus Christi is something that is beneficial for both physicians and patients.
The new deal agreed amends the original 5-year offer between Spohn and the hospital district to a 6-year deal.
Emergency physician Michael Brodeur said the agreement is one that took a lot of work from people all around the community.
"We found a lot of allies and were able to really reach out to members in the community,” he said. “They have been absolutely instrumental in helping us reverse the decision."
Now that an agreement has been reached, Dr. John Herrick said things can go back to normal for the emergency medicine residency program. One of the first things his team will do is get back to finding the best doctors to bring to the Coastal Bend.
"We can get back to normal,” he said. “We can see patients and start recruiting. That's a big part of our program. You know, we recruit from November through February, so we've had to put all that on hold. We'll have a lot of work to catch up on and get back on the recruiting trail to get residents for next year.”