Unfortunately, this small portion of the park, which isn't really utilized and is disconnected from the main park, is really needed for the expansion of the hospital as it's heavily utilized by the poor and uninsured, not to mention it's a level 1 trauma and a teaching hospital.
Honestly, if this hospital isn't expanded, we're going to lament that fact in about 50 years.
Ben Taub is chronically underfunded mostly because it's the state's charity hospital.
They are asking for 9 acres for a building that will sit on less about 1/3 of the land.
This is not as simple or innocent as it seems. They could expand the hospital other ways, or just permit charity cases to go to another hospital too. It's not like there's a shortage of hospital space in Houston, we have people flying in from elsewhere to use our Hosptial system, and Hospitals have major medical enclaves (collections of primarily hospital buildings) all over the city.
And Ben Taub doesn't have to be the county's only charity hospital. They could permit others to take the indigent, and failing Hosptial complexes could then recover without the need to build anything. St. Joseph's went bankrupt a year ago.
To my eyes this looks more like getting "extra" pristine land near downtown than an attempt to do more reasonable things. That's probably because hospitals are in a boom, accepting the baby boomers as they age. After that, there's likely going to be a crash in medicine, because the prices are already the highest in the world by far, and Gen X / Gen Y can't provide the numbers of old sick people to replace the Baby Boom.
So I don't think it's a great plan to expand onto parkland. The hospital angle is just the excuse to do something that can't be undone, and it's a scam (and you know it) when the amount of land being requested can build 3 Ben Taub expansions.
“Permit charity cases to go to another hospital too.” Methodist and Memorial Hermann are not going to be all happy and excited to take Ben Taub’s have nots, lol.
Is that your well thought out answer to a reasonable argument?
All of Hermann Park is not pristine. It was designed by a Park Architect. The land there prevents the entrance to the park from being "tall buildings on one side" and park on the other.
Playing around with stupid counter point that suggest "mountains" in Houston, makes it sound like you're saying something profound. You're not. There is no pristine land in the USA, but there is park land. This is a park. Once you put a building on it, it will never be a park again.
Once your park land is gone, the city becomes ugly.
Let’s respond then. Your comment about the land being resold is not based upon any fact. That is your assumption not based upon anything. The state can permit more hospitals to take the underserved, but that hospital would need to be willing to do so and have the space to do so. MD Anderson services cancer patients only, Methodist is a very much for profit hospital, Memorial Hermann is land locked and can only do so much, and TCH well services children. This doesn’t leave many places to go. And this is once again, going to service underserved parts of the community. At least this land being transferred to another entity isn’t for building another highway boondoggle.
It's based on history. It's been done in Austin before.
Imminent domain was famously used to take private land for park land there. Then they decided the park only needed to be 1/2 the size. Then they sold 1/2 the park for a profit, removing the owner's ability to enjoy the profits.
You’re still making an assumption that will happen based upon events in other cities. Nothing will change your mind. Your argument is that this shouldn’t happen based upon a hypothetical government making a land grab to sell later (which there is no evidence that this will happen). You will deny people life saving care just for pure conjecture. You’re too blind by “big government bad”despite it helping those who can’t help themselves.
You're still making the assumption that in order to preserve the 6 acres of park land as a park, it needs to be in private hands. It's park now, and if Ben Taub wanted to expand, they could simply ONLY ask for the 3 acres they need, not the 9.
I have not made a single statement about wanting to preserve land. I think all nine acres of unused land (and it is unused by anyone) should be completely paved over more medical care for people to get their needs met. And it’s too late to save Houston. The NIMBYS in rice village, Montrose, and other nearby areas won’t want to make Houston more dense or approve taxes for subsidized mass transit. So let’s at least get people some care.
We have entire high-rises in Houston that are abandoned. If you really want to make Houston dense, put the hospital there.
801 St. Joseph Parkway - empty
The Exxon Mobil Tower (vacant since 2015, sold for 14.5 Million in 2023, still vacant)
2.5 Billion would pay enough to retrofit a lot of what's there. But you are actually arguing for more sprawl. In this case, it's sprawl from developed lands to undeveloped lands. It's just not "edge of the city" sprawl.
Funny enough, the hospital Howard Huges was born in used to be in Downtown. But the main reason why it won't happen? Because it's not "free" land to be taken from the public.
You won't get that no-sprawl by creating more "single purpose use" areas. You just get more people driving from the wrong "single purpose use" area to the right "single purpose use" area.
…do you know that parks can’t be appreciated by people who are DEAD because there wasn’t enough space in the hospital to treat their case? Dead people also don’t care if a city is ugly. Because they’re dead.
This isn’t some politician’s new McMansion being built on seized State property. This isn’t another real estate developer looking to destroy protected land or development of significance. This is a charity hospital expanding its services to offer more beds and specialities to serve not only Houston and Harris County, but people from all over the world. Houston has about 10,000 hospital beds, serving nearly 8 million people… and Ben Taub has just a little over 400 beds.
It’s a historic building, so building up would be astronomic in cost, and so far the engineers they have hired have said it’s not possible. And let’s not forget the billions of dollars cut from hospital funds in the OBBBA as well as attacking 501c3 tax breaks. They are asking for 9 acres of undeveloped, unused land next to Ben Taub that is part of Herman Park. This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s not part of a large plan to destroy Houston’s parks. It’s literally an old hospital that desperately needs to expand and cannot build up so they can treat more people in their time of need.
Parks are appreciated by the living. I thought you knew that.
This is a politician's McMansion being built on park land.
Ben Taub has 11.5 acres on which it's buildings sit. They want 9 fresh, new acres to eventually rebuild the entire hospital. Those 11.5 acres of old, nasty hospital will probably not shutdown, but the plans indicate that they should.
After the land it given to Ben Taub, they want 2.5 Billion to start the first building. That's 2.5 Million per hospital bed. At a time when St. Joseph's just declared bankruptcy, but St. Joseph's is not publicly owned, so they don't have taxes as an income stream.
They could have simply bailed out another Hospital, or built a second facility so all the indigent ambulances in Harris County don't have to drive all the way to Ben Taub.
There are so many other options, but the focus on this option is so extreme, that even cheaper and more effective options are not being considered.
My point being is that people who die from preventable illness due to lack of hospital beds or appropriate admission times cannot appreciate parks.
This is not a politician’s McMansion. It’s literally a hospital expanding. Sick and injured people will be rotating thru the rooms. Many some physicians spending the night there while they’re on long shift blocks.
Ben Taub might be an old hospital building, but its infrastructure is still fine. They have modern equipment and have been able to update it to code. Its structure does not need to be torn down, tho it would be nice to have a new hospital. Still, that would shut down its services for a very long time and cause a laundry list of issues. Where will all this medical equipment go? What will they do with all their medication? Lab and pathology equipment also needs to be stored in specific environments. Surgical tools, too. And now you’ve taken 1 of 3 level 1 trauma centers out of commission. The hospital systems are already overloaded, and Ben Taub fills a necessary niche not many others can. It cannot just be close, torn down, and rebuilt. You severely misunderstand the logistics behind doing such.
$2.5 billion is about what it costs to build hospitals. My hospital cost about that for less beds. We added another tower a few years back, which alone cost over $400 million for less than 100 beds. And it’s not just beds. There’s department expansions, like a new or satellite pharmacy with all their meds and compounding areas (which adhere to at least the same sterility guidelines as surgical suites, if not higher). Lab and pathology are also very expensive to build out. Radiology? It cost us $20 million just to remove our MRI machine, refurbish it, and put it back in. We haven’t even touch surgical suites, like state of the art cath labs, robotic assisted rooms, cardiothoracic, neurology, oncology, trauma, or the likes.
Again, you severely lack the understanding literally every bit regarding the medical field and Ben Taub’s expansion. Cut the conspiracy theories and rejoin reality.
Preventable illnesses don't get quashed in hospital beds. They start off with clinic visits. Ben Taub isn't adding any clinics, they're adding hospital beds.
An immunization is the gold standard of preventable illness treatment. If you really want to promote preventable illnesses, I'll stand behind you all day long. That said, you're confusing the expansion, what Ben Taub does, and a few other items with "overall general health" of the indigent.
For better overall general health, forcing clinics to see the indigent before it becomes a hospital bed requiring illness is the best path forward. And that already uses the existing clinics.
Hospitals absolutely are paramount in preventable illnesses. Beyond postpartum vaccinations, many of underprivileged demographic rely on hospitals for medical care as finding clinics can be difficult. Yes, clinics are supposed to take that burden off us, but it is very, very common to see uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid, or community insurance holders come to the hospital for minor acute illnesses or preventable therapies that would otherwise be handled in a clinic/pharmacy. We carry more vaccines than your local retail pharmacy or clinic.
I did poorly word it but my intent was moreso to target preventable injury or death from illness. Ben Taub handles the aforementioned along with more severe illnesses that would require hospital level of care as well as surgery, up to something as important as a level 1 trauma center. Again, that is something we cannot just shut down and rebuild. It would further strain an already stretched thin medical system and lead to more deaths that could have been prevented.
If you look into any preventative care program, by the time the patient is being admitted to a hospital bed, it's too late.
Hospital beds are for what preventative care cannot address, or for patients that are severely ill AFTER an outbreak, or far more likely, for patients that have some acute injury that preventative care would not address (car accidents for example).
And you keep shifting your argument as each point is lost. Nobody said we could just shutdown Ben Taub, and if you think they can't rebuild it elsewhere, that's exactly why they are asking for the land. They're planning on rebuilding it next door.
Please name the state charity hospital for Harris County.
Please indicate how much of the 9 acres will have the new proposed building on it.
I don't have to know how hospitals work, to know that other plans are possible. If the Exxon Mobil tower in downtown can sell for 14.5 million (and is still empty), then I want to know why imminent domain is needed for 9 acres of park land to build a 2500 million hospital.
That funding isn't approved yet, and may never be approved. It's also just shy of buying 200 Exxon Mobil towers. Hospitals are built differently, and certainly cost more per square foot, but you could get more land just buying the Exxon Mobil tower and razing it, and it would have four streets of emergency access, not just two.
Instead it's park land bought an imminent domain prices, which for undeveloped land is much cheaper than improved land. It seems that one could argue to take some of the empty buildings and retrofit the next Ben Taub into them, or if not possible at least knock them down and rebuild.
801 St. Joseph is also perpetually empty.
I'm not talking about small buidlings either. There are plenty of large buildings that are empty. Instead of spending 2500 million to require some park to be destoryed, let's destroy the buildings that aren't going to be used, and make them something useful. Heck, I might even vote to borrow extra money to turn these derelict spaces into something useful.
And you’re going to staff it with who? A different lab, different doctors, different nurses? Different transport? Different phlebotomists? Do you realize how much more expensive it is making a new hospital than expanding one? You need different bed board, different nursing directors, different quality control directors. Forget paying the salary for them, how about just finding all of these people to hire in a nursing and doctor shortage?
Remember you need a place for these patients to go. You can’t build a new functioning hospital and shut down the old one, it still has to be running full speed.
A phlebotomist? That's not even a high paying hospital job. $21 an hour, I think $2500 million can buy quite a few of them.
Different transport? The transport is already different Ben Taub doesn't run its own transport fleets. And the amazing thing about vehicles is that they have wheels. It permits them to drive to multiple locations, not just the location next to the old location.
Different nurses? The plan was to replace Ben Taub with a new Ben Taub, just south of the original. With some care, you can even use the old nurses, they can work at the new facility.
Different <insert>? Hey you're just playing the Gish Gallop, the argument approach of people that don't have a clear point, but are playing the game of "cheap fast questions make people who can answer look bad because the answers take long, and provide plenty of effort on their part.
Instead of low effort deflection, try actually explain how only the construction right nextdoor to Ben Taub is the optimal solution for the problem, and why that optimal solution is estimated to cost 2500 million dollars, when it is clear that purchase of an entire downtown city block (with a tower on it) is not even 1% of the cost of construction.
Ben Taub is a great place, but what is happening is it's good name is being dragged in to do something untoward. It's like all of the "think of the children" arguments that objectively made the world worse, because it was never about "just" the children, it was about getting what was wanted, while pretending to be doing a noble deed.
Transport as in people to transport the patient inside the hospital to different units or radiology. . You cannot transition a hospital to a new hospital until BOTH ARE UP AND RUNNING. You clearly don’t work in healthcare and have never seen expansions/transitions.
Also have you physically used the area they are talking about? I don’t work at Ben taub, I’m at a different hospital in Houston, I love hermann memorial park and was pretty opposed until I saw the area they were talking about. No one goes there. And while this dumbfuck president tries to get everyone uninsured, we will need an expanded functioning safety net asap. Building a whole entire fucking hospital to shut one of the most safety net hospitals down isn’t one of them.
You clearly work at a hospital, probably as a phlebotomist, or perhaps as a PR promoter, for this effort.
Every large undertaking can be planned. The hospital didn't build itself originally, and all of these problems were solved in the past. Saying they can't be solved in the future is silly.
Of course such a task would be done by a skeleton crew in the new hospital, shifting the lesser cases over until the new hospital is fully operational. If you think that's not a viable plan, you need to study operations. A lot more has been done under harder conditions with a lot less.
$2500 million is $1000 in taxes from every Houston citizen, man, woman, and child. Much of that population doesn't even have the means to earn enough to generate $1,000 additional in taxes, if they could generate $1,000 in taxes at all. Infants don't work, nor do the elderly, nor do a lot of the population, for one reason or another.
And to claim that the only way it all works is THIS ONE WAY, is laughable. There's more than one solution to it. This is the way that someone wants it, and odds are they've sunk a bit of cash into making it work this way.
That you can't imagine there's a second way to solve the problem speaks volumes. That's because there isn't just a second way to solve it, there's a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on.
But here you are, telling other people that they don't know much about hospitals or medicine, when I'm a combat foreign-war decorated hospital corpsman. I simply don't mention it much, because arguments aren't about who is doing the arguing, it's about the quality of the content of the argument. And I don't pretend that military hospitals are the same as non-military hospitals, but you've been taking the conversation and making it personal, when I've been indicating that there's other solutions.
Apparently for you, there aren't. If we don't build the hosptial there, then Ben Taub can never build elsewhere, ever. It's game over. Ben Taub is doomed to never grow, which is a farce of an idea, considering every other hosptial can be seen every ten minues drive anywhere throughout Houston on any major freeway because all of the other ones have figured out how to build outside of the medical center.
I guess Ben Taub is missing something, something that has allowed all the other hospitals to realize that they could expand outside of "we must build next door." Something that all other hosptials are smart enough to have.
I am an ICU doctor at a different Houston hospital. I don’t have any ulterior motive, but I’ve worked at safety net hospitals like this one and unless you’ve worked inside one, you have no idea how fragile they are. Also have you physically gone to the area that they are talking about building on. I was pretty against this plan till I saw it. No one is using it.
You're a physician. The work is done to make you shine, and you walk in and tell everyone how it works, and then you get patted on the back because you're the big dog of the hospital.
I agree they are fragile, but they are also resilient. In 50 years, Ben Taub hasn't failed. The reasons why are many, but it's mostly because there is an entire hospital beyond the physicians.
Much of that is operational (as in business operations). This is an area I would expect you not to deal with, because honestly, it would be a waste of your training for you to be dealing with it.
In every other field, there are means of moving things that most people just don't think of as movable. I suggest you leave those skills to the people who have them. While the skills you have are impressive, being good at something doesn't automatically make you good at others.
My father-in-law was a Hospital Administrator. He has managed many hospitals over his career. We have family that oversees "facilities" in hospitals, and the stuff they swap out without you noticing is impressive.
It can be done. But if you think 1000 beds will just be easy to put next door to your current building, then I'll have to ask the obvious question. How wide is the door? That walkway alone is not large enough to make the transition easy. I've seen the plans It's about wide enough to put two beds on it, if you have very careful control.
So, many of the problems will be present anyway. It's doable, and doable in places that are cheaper, with better freeway access. You just need to exercise your imagination, but not in a fantasy sense, you need to imagine it can be done first, and then you'll start to see that this is a very "one way or no way" argument when it's obvious there are multiple ways to expand Ben Taub.
The Harris health network hospitals are regularly 90% and even 100% (ben taub itself is actually well over its bed capacity at times). Let alone not all the hospitals are equal in the care they can provide. Ben Taub is the only level 1 trauma center in that group of hospitals until 2028. You cant just send patients that need it to other hospitals.
When was the last time you look at houston hospital bed capacity? Heres a hint most havent dropped below 90% (a lot havent gotten below 95%) filled since the beginning of covid. Also observational doesnt mean theres no chance they wont need the facilities provided by that hospital. Yall are trying to manage something yall know nothing about.
Are you talking about licensed or physical capacity or how they are staffed? You are asking a question so you sound knowledgeable so you surely understand the difference.
I have not looked at it since Covid. I will be willing to bet you are referring to how hospitals are staffing. You want to be running at 90% as you staff based on census (occupancy). Doing so is efficient.
Also are you looking at just the TMC or the region?
No, they’re completely wrong. It’s not that Ben Taub wants these patients and refuses to share. The private hospitals in Houston and every other city in the country have layers upon layers of policies to keep these non-paying patients out of their hospitals. No, it’s not legal, but these patients can’t do anything about it. The indigent patients of Houston go to Ben Taub and LBJ because they literally cannot get care anywhere else. Anyone who thinks otherwise has absolutely no clue how our health system is built.
Harris Health has programs where they pay nursing homes to take in residents to lighten the load. Part of this is a societal issue where families can’t or won’t care for their family, & part of it is the true indigent with no one.
They are adding 100 beds. That isn’t going to solve their problem.
You’re mistaking long-term, subacute care that a nursing home provides with the acute or emergent care provided in a hospital environment. The two are completely different. Harris Health does coordinate with outpatient facilities to find a safe disposition for indigent patients, but that has nothing to do with the overwhelming unmet need for acute inpatient medical services. That’s what adding new Hospital beds is meant to help with, and is urgently needed.
You’re peak Dunning Kruger right now. Try and get a doctor to teach you what observation means in a clinical context and reconsider this later. There’s no denying that there is a huge unmet need for acute inpatient hospital care in Houston. Pretending that any other hospital system will magnanimously decide to take on the burden of unpaid indigent care is completely delusional, and harmful to the people who will die without this kind of help.
Wow such big words, & making the assumption that I don’t understand case management or the discharge issues faced by Ben Taub is rather arrogant especially since you didn’t answer the one question I asked.
I am not a clinician but I am aware of the huge delta between the per diem an observation patient the hospital receives and what Medicare pays. I also know some high percentage of those patients have no business being in an acute care setting but I will wait for you to answer.
I'm not aware of where to find aggregate data (if it's published), but at least when I worked there, I can't really recall ever having met with an obs patient outside of the dedicated observation unit, and the attendings down there always seemed keen on getting those patients discharged ASAP. I generally didn't see anybody linger down there unless they were a medically complex case, or if there were complications with discharge/transport.
Anecdotally, I never got the impression that the hospital's approach towards observation was meaningfully contributing to the bed shortage, and it seemed like there was a fair amount of pressure from up top to be expeditious with discharges across the entire hospital. But most patients I saw there either had fairly complex medical conditions or were very acute (e.g., freshly peppered with bullets), so it seemed like there was very limited fat to trim when it came to trying to save up bed space. But again, that was just my own perception.
I recommend a book called the People’s hospital. It’s actually about Ben Taub. You have zero idea how any of this works. Harris health actually is charity for residents of the county, they don’t rely on insurance.
Thank you Doc, it isn’t other hospitals. That is why it is trying to take land from a park.
You made a point that they don’t rely on insurance. That is incorrect. 60% of their patients have insurance or govt programs. Do the math, if 40% of the patients are indigent that means they provide no revenue so yes that, 60% are important.
The tmc footprint on their 50 year plan was expected to go down holcomb, down fannin and would almost envelops the NRG complex.
I looked at the map a few decades ago, so I don't recall if Ben taub expansion was included on that. There was an argument as to why all the medical facilities should be close together.
I will bet that 99.9% of attendees have never set foot in that portion of the park.
It's isolated from the rest of it by major roads and is really just a walking cut through from a nearby parking lot to Ben Taub and then essentially a place for homeless people to hang out. I walk my dog around Lamar Fleming regularly and I'm not sure if I've ever seen a recreational user of the area.
Just make sure the Hermann Park Conservancy is adequately compensated for this land so they can finish and build out the remainder of their master plan.
Why not shut the hospital down & turn it into parkland? I am being facetious but we as taxpayers don’t want a hospital district utilizing eminent domain.
You love to use language like "we" as if you speak for anyone beyond yourself.
I think it's fine for a hospital to utilize eminent domain, it's very clearly a public purpose for a public facility. Additionally, it's taking wildly underutilized property to accomplish the purpose.
If I find myself on the opposite side of you, it's a good barometer that I'm in the right.
You want to prevent a hospital you will never use (I'm sure you're a Methodist guy) from expanding to serve patients you will never meet (not from your bubble, who do you know that would go to Ben Taub) because you want to preserve an open piece of land that's currently an underutilized portion of a park that you've likely never been to (you may have gone to Hermann Park, but definitively never this portion of it).
The Conservancy needs the money more than it needs this land. The people of the county will be better served by an expanded Ben Taub, the only question is the value to be paid to the conservancy which will be tremendously beneficial as they rework the course
What have they budgeted for that land? Surely that number is available as they asked us to vote on a $2 bn + bond issue with expansion plans. No one does that except for perhaps county government & Harris Health.
I am fortunate. I have never used a hospital except for stitches.
Part of the long term plan is to expand ben Taub, replace the existing structure, demolish the existing building, and return the current Ben Taub land back to the park. So your comment about turning it into parkland isn’t far off
Today that plan is mainly rhetoric so I’d be more of a fan if the proposal was enshrined in a contract with timelines and financial penalties.
There should be more medical care for low income persons. Also, perhaps this would open up more resources for trauma treatment like when law enforcement gets shot. I think getting rid of a lot with 20-30 trees and a short cut that saves workers five minutes is worth it.
It seems like most people's opposition to this is pretty knee-jerk and not well thought out. I live nearby and go to Hermann Park most days. That area is basically unused by anyone the vast majority of the time. At the same time, Ben Taub is the only true level one trauma center in the county, which is crazy given our population. They are already maxed for space and trying to build up on the existing structure would further limit the usable area for the duration of the construction, as well possibly damage the existing structure.
At the same time, Ben Taub is the only true level one trauma center in the county, which is crazy given our population.
While I agree with everything else & with the expansion, Memorial Hermann & Texas Children's are also Level I trauma centers. Not in the county but nearby, UTMB in Galveston is also.
Of course, compared to the 5 in Dallas plus 2 in FW plus 1 in Plano, one could easily argue that's not enough (FWIW, Austin & San Antonio each have 2).
I was talking about the American College of Surgeons designation of a level one trauma center, not the state of Texas. Ben Taub has it and has maintained that designation for a long time. Memorial Hermann has it sometimes and doesn't have it other times.
People keep saying things like this and have no idea what that would actually entail in reality. It would be a massive upheaval of resources that ultimately would have a higher human and financial cost then using this parcel of land with maybe 30 trees small enough you could yell at a guy on the other side and he’d probably know what you were saying.
I'm all in favor the expansion. LBJ is supposed to lessen the load on Ben Taub but it's still won't be enough especially with projected population growth.
Maybe we shouldn't put all the eggs in so few baskets.
We have tons of satellite Hospital complexes on the edge of Houston. St. Joseph's just had a bankruptcy. Seems to me that it wouldn't be overly difficult to create a new center, or join an existing one elsewhere.
Wouldn't mind have some closer to the industrial areas, but then there would be the outcry from the NIMBY crowd or those bemoaning the associated costs.
I wouldn't even say it'd have to be in the industrial areas. Going with the suburbs helps to provide care closer to the incidents. So, Sugar Land, Katy, The Woodlands, & Pasadena (for the industrial but also population base)...save people from having to be transported 20-30 miles away, potentially when there's life-threatening traffic that then requires a LifeFlight, when there's room & existing medical facilities that should be built out.
It’s a public system have you looked at the financials? Providing medical care to as many people as they serve in Houston is expensive without any significant support from the state or federal government. The system needs to grow because Americans are poor and unhealthy. But the government is not assisting. Something has to break
Please don't try to pitch it as "no big deal" and it's not much land. It's 9 acres of the park. It means that instead of driving "through" the park, you'll drive along one of it's sides only.
Also that land was donated (And much of the medical center sits on Hermann's previous land) If you start breaking the agreement, the terms of the donation will eventually be eroded. There's lots other parts of the park that are also prime candidates for being nibbled away, like the back holes of the golf course, the section near Alameda Road, etc.
And let's not forget that the bayou itself was part of the land, which now has to major roads running alongside of it, and much of the medical center only has land due to Hermann's generosity.
I think there's some foul play here. The proposal tried to get pushed forward under a cover of darkness. The amount of land being requested is nearly 3x the footprint of the building. Yes, they can build two expansions on the "removed" land and still have some green space between them.
Perhaps the individuals who donated this land a long time ago could not understand the shear amount of medical needed in the future and would agree with its use for those underserved. I’d think people who donated land for everyone to use would want more help for people who can’t get or otherwise. And it’s nine of acres of park no one uses. No one goes from the area around the zoo to that section to use it as a park.
You literally ignored that the state can simply permit the under served to go to another hospital. There are many that can use the extra funds to treat the under served. St. Joseph's just went through bankruptcy last year.
The main reason we need to "build a new expansion" is to take the park land, 3x the amount needed for the proposed expansion, so it can be sold again to developers.
If they do take it can they at least leave some green space around the hospital add-on ? The man in charge of expansion doesn't give af he wants it to happen. Why can't they buy out the COH & UH building nearby they can rebuild somewhere else.
While they intend to start with building on the 3 acres, they're going to replace the entire hospital over time. The first phase will cost tax payers 2.5 Billion dollars for 1000 beds, or 2.5 Million dollars per bed.
The remaining acres will eventually be built out as hospital too. Since the plans imply replacing the 11.5 acre hospital with the 9 acre one. I would imagine that any green space left over would be limited at best.
In fact the plan is to take 9 acres of green space. Which is a lot more than the building will sit upon.
Now, if they made it better, I guess it would be like a park. Which brings to question why ask for the entire 9 acres to make 6 of them a park, not controlled by the park.
It's not going to go the way people think it will. Just like how Beltway 8 was going to be free after its construction costs were paid off. There will be hints and innuendo that it's going to be green space, but if they wanted that, they wouldn't need to take the whole 9 acres. It's already green space.
When I first learned this news, I made a point of checking out that area, I ride my bike past it several times a week. I've never seen a person in this space. It is a shame to lose green space, but this mission and work of Ben Taub is too important.
This is a tough one. I'm all about expanding services to the most vulnerable in our community, but green spaces are also important for maintaining the health of our local ecosystem. To me, I would err more on the side of caution for the long term and agree that the expansion into the park is a bad idea. In fact, it might even be more worth while to place a Ben Taub expansion inside of or nearer to a low income neighborhood rather that just having it stay in a concentrated medical district.
In fact, if the will could be assembled to greatly expand the Ben Taub medical system across Houston in general, the one in the medical district could just be used for the most extreme cases, while the surrounding outlying centers could be for general medical needs of the community.
Unfortunately, this small portion of the park, which isn't really utilized and is disconnected from the main park, is really needed for the expansion of the hospital as it's heavily utilized by the poor and uninsured, not to mention it's a level 1 trauma and a teaching hospital.
Honestly, if this hospital isn't expanded, we're going to lament that fact in about 50 years.
it's been a while since the public wanted more for these groups
Ben Taub is chronically underfunded mostly because it's the state's charity hospital.
They are asking for 9 acres for a building that will sit on less about 1/3 of the land.
This is not as simple or innocent as it seems. They could expand the hospital other ways, or just permit charity cases to go to another hospital too. It's not like there's a shortage of hospital space in Houston, we have people flying in from elsewhere to use our Hosptial system, and Hospitals have major medical enclaves (collections of primarily hospital buildings) all over the city.
And Ben Taub doesn't have to be the county's only charity hospital. They could permit others to take the indigent, and failing Hosptial complexes could then recover without the need to build anything. St. Joseph's went bankrupt a year ago.
To my eyes this looks more like getting "extra" pristine land near downtown than an attempt to do more reasonable things. That's probably because hospitals are in a boom, accepting the baby boomers as they age. After that, there's likely going to be a crash in medicine, because the prices are already the highest in the world by far, and Gen X / Gen Y can't provide the numbers of old sick people to replace the Baby Boom.
So I don't think it's a great plan to expand onto parkland. The hospital angle is just the excuse to do something that can't be undone, and it's a scam (and you know it) when the amount of land being requested can build 3 Ben Taub expansions.
“Permit charity cases to go to another hospital too.” Methodist and Memorial Hermann are not going to be all happy and excited to take Ben Taub’s have nots, lol.
That land is not pristine. It isn’t the mountains filled with forest and a gently rolling creek.
Is that your well thought out answer to a reasonable argument?
All of Hermann Park is not pristine. It was designed by a Park Architect. The land there prevents the entrance to the park from being "tall buildings on one side" and park on the other.
Playing around with stupid counter point that suggest "mountains" in Houston, makes it sound like you're saying something profound. You're not. There is no pristine land in the USA, but there is park land. This is a park. Once you put a building on it, it will never be a park again.
Once your park land is gone, the city becomes ugly.
Let’s respond then. Your comment about the land being resold is not based upon any fact. That is your assumption not based upon anything. The state can permit more hospitals to take the underserved, but that hospital would need to be willing to do so and have the space to do so. MD Anderson services cancer patients only, Methodist is a very much for profit hospital, Memorial Hermann is land locked and can only do so much, and TCH well services children. This doesn’t leave many places to go. And this is once again, going to service underserved parts of the community. At least this land being transferred to another entity isn’t for building another highway boondoggle.
It's based on history. It's been done in Austin before.
Imminent domain was famously used to take private land for park land there. Then they decided the park only needed to be 1/2 the size. Then they sold 1/2 the park for a profit, removing the owner's ability to enjoy the profits.
You’re still making an assumption that will happen based upon events in other cities. Nothing will change your mind. Your argument is that this shouldn’t happen based upon a hypothetical government making a land grab to sell later (which there is no evidence that this will happen). You will deny people life saving care just for pure conjecture. You’re too blind by “big government bad”despite it helping those who can’t help themselves.
You're still making the assumption that in order to preserve the 6 acres of park land as a park, it needs to be in private hands. It's park now, and if Ben Taub wanted to expand, they could simply ONLY ask for the 3 acres they need, not the 9.
I have not made a single statement about wanting to preserve land. I think all nine acres of unused land (and it is unused by anyone) should be completely paved over more medical care for people to get their needs met. And it’s too late to save Houston. The NIMBYS in rice village, Montrose, and other nearby areas won’t want to make Houston more dense or approve taxes for subsidized mass transit. So let’s at least get people some care.
We have entire high-rises in Houston that are abandoned. If you really want to make Houston dense, put the hospital there.
801 St. Joseph Parkway - empty
The Exxon Mobil Tower (vacant since 2015, sold for 14.5 Million in 2023, still vacant)
2.5 Billion would pay enough to retrofit a lot of what's there. But you are actually arguing for more sprawl. In this case, it's sprawl from developed lands to undeveloped lands. It's just not "edge of the city" sprawl.
Funny enough, the hospital Howard Huges was born in used to be in Downtown. But the main reason why it won't happen? Because it's not "free" land to be taken from the public.
You won't get that no-sprawl by creating more "single purpose use" areas. You just get more people driving from the wrong "single purpose use" area to the right "single purpose use" area.
…do you know that parks can’t be appreciated by people who are DEAD because there wasn’t enough space in the hospital to treat their case? Dead people also don’t care if a city is ugly. Because they’re dead.
This isn’t some politician’s new McMansion being built on seized State property. This isn’t another real estate developer looking to destroy protected land or development of significance. This is a charity hospital expanding its services to offer more beds and specialities to serve not only Houston and Harris County, but people from all over the world. Houston has about 10,000 hospital beds, serving nearly 8 million people… and Ben Taub has just a little over 400 beds.
It’s a historic building, so building up would be astronomic in cost, and so far the engineers they have hired have said it’s not possible. And let’s not forget the billions of dollars cut from hospital funds in the OBBBA as well as attacking 501c3 tax breaks. They are asking for 9 acres of undeveloped, unused land next to Ben Taub that is part of Herman Park. This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s not part of a large plan to destroy Houston’s parks. It’s literally an old hospital that desperately needs to expand and cannot build up so they can treat more people in their time of need.
Parks are appreciated by the living. I thought you knew that.
This is a politician's McMansion being built on park land.
Ben Taub has 11.5 acres on which it's buildings sit. They want 9 fresh, new acres to eventually rebuild the entire hospital. Those 11.5 acres of old, nasty hospital will probably not shutdown, but the plans indicate that they should.
After the land it given to Ben Taub, they want 2.5 Billion to start the first building. That's 2.5 Million per hospital bed. At a time when St. Joseph's just declared bankruptcy, but St. Joseph's is not publicly owned, so they don't have taxes as an income stream.
They could have simply bailed out another Hospital, or built a second facility so all the indigent ambulances in Harris County don't have to drive all the way to Ben Taub.
There are so many other options, but the focus on this option is so extreme, that even cheaper and more effective options are not being considered.
My point being is that people who die from preventable illness due to lack of hospital beds or appropriate admission times cannot appreciate parks.
This is not a politician’s McMansion. It’s literally a hospital expanding. Sick and injured people will be rotating thru the rooms. Many some physicians spending the night there while they’re on long shift blocks.
Ben Taub might be an old hospital building, but its infrastructure is still fine. They have modern equipment and have been able to update it to code. Its structure does not need to be torn down, tho it would be nice to have a new hospital. Still, that would shut down its services for a very long time and cause a laundry list of issues. Where will all this medical equipment go? What will they do with all their medication? Lab and pathology equipment also needs to be stored in specific environments. Surgical tools, too. And now you’ve taken 1 of 3 level 1 trauma centers out of commission. The hospital systems are already overloaded, and Ben Taub fills a necessary niche not many others can. It cannot just be close, torn down, and rebuilt. You severely misunderstand the logistics behind doing such.
$2.5 billion is about what it costs to build hospitals. My hospital cost about that for less beds. We added another tower a few years back, which alone cost over $400 million for less than 100 beds. And it’s not just beds. There’s department expansions, like a new or satellite pharmacy with all their meds and compounding areas (which adhere to at least the same sterility guidelines as surgical suites, if not higher). Lab and pathology are also very expensive to build out. Radiology? It cost us $20 million just to remove our MRI machine, refurbish it, and put it back in. We haven’t even touch surgical suites, like state of the art cath labs, robotic assisted rooms, cardiothoracic, neurology, oncology, trauma, or the likes.
Again, you severely lack the understanding literally every bit regarding the medical field and Ben Taub’s expansion. Cut the conspiracy theories and rejoin reality.
Preventable illnesses don't get quashed in hospital beds. They start off with clinic visits. Ben Taub isn't adding any clinics, they're adding hospital beds.
An immunization is the gold standard of preventable illness treatment. If you really want to promote preventable illnesses, I'll stand behind you all day long. That said, you're confusing the expansion, what Ben Taub does, and a few other items with "overall general health" of the indigent.
For better overall general health, forcing clinics to see the indigent before it becomes a hospital bed requiring illness is the best path forward. And that already uses the existing clinics.
Hospitals absolutely are paramount in preventable illnesses. Beyond postpartum vaccinations, many of underprivileged demographic rely on hospitals for medical care as finding clinics can be difficult. Yes, clinics are supposed to take that burden off us, but it is very, very common to see uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid, or community insurance holders come to the hospital for minor acute illnesses or preventable therapies that would otherwise be handled in a clinic/pharmacy. We carry more vaccines than your local retail pharmacy or clinic.
I did poorly word it but my intent was moreso to target preventable injury or death from illness. Ben Taub handles the aforementioned along with more severe illnesses that would require hospital level of care as well as surgery, up to something as important as a level 1 trauma center. Again, that is something we cannot just shut down and rebuild. It would further strain an already stretched thin medical system and lead to more deaths that could have been prevented.
If you look into any preventative care program, by the time the patient is being admitted to a hospital bed, it's too late.
Hospital beds are for what preventative care cannot address, or for patients that are severely ill AFTER an outbreak, or far more likely, for patients that have some acute injury that preventative care would not address (car accidents for example).
And you keep shifting your argument as each point is lost. Nobody said we could just shutdown Ben Taub, and if you think they can't rebuild it elsewhere, that's exactly why they are asking for the land. They're planning on rebuilding it next door.
You have zero idea how hospitals work.
Please name the state charity hospital for Harris County.
Please indicate how much of the 9 acres will have the new proposed building on it.
I don't have to know how hospitals work, to know that other plans are possible. If the Exxon Mobil tower in downtown can sell for 14.5 million (and is still empty), then I want to know why imminent domain is needed for 9 acres of park land to build a 2500 million hospital.
That funding isn't approved yet, and may never be approved. It's also just shy of buying 200 Exxon Mobil towers. Hospitals are built differently, and certainly cost more per square foot, but you could get more land just buying the Exxon Mobil tower and razing it, and it would have four streets of emergency access, not just two.
Instead it's park land bought an imminent domain prices, which for undeveloped land is much cheaper than improved land. It seems that one could argue to take some of the empty buildings and retrofit the next Ben Taub into them, or if not possible at least knock them down and rebuild.
801 St. Joseph is also perpetually empty.
I'm not talking about small buidlings either. There are plenty of large buildings that are empty. Instead of spending 2500 million to require some park to be destoryed, let's destroy the buildings that aren't going to be used, and make them something useful. Heck, I might even vote to borrow extra money to turn these derelict spaces into something useful.
And you’re going to staff it with who? A different lab, different doctors, different nurses? Different transport? Different phlebotomists? Do you realize how much more expensive it is making a new hospital than expanding one? You need different bed board, different nursing directors, different quality control directors. Forget paying the salary for them, how about just finding all of these people to hire in a nursing and doctor shortage?
Remember you need a place for these patients to go. You can’t build a new functioning hospital and shut down the old one, it still has to be running full speed.
A phlebotomist? That's not even a high paying hospital job. $21 an hour, I think $2500 million can buy quite a few of them.
Different transport? The transport is already different Ben Taub doesn't run its own transport fleets. And the amazing thing about vehicles is that they have wheels. It permits them to drive to multiple locations, not just the location next to the old location.
Different nurses? The plan was to replace Ben Taub with a new Ben Taub, just south of the original. With some care, you can even use the old nurses, they can work at the new facility.
Different <insert>? Hey you're just playing the Gish Gallop, the argument approach of people that don't have a clear point, but are playing the game of "cheap fast questions make people who can answer look bad because the answers take long, and provide plenty of effort on their part.
Instead of low effort deflection, try actually explain how only the construction right nextdoor to Ben Taub is the optimal solution for the problem, and why that optimal solution is estimated to cost 2500 million dollars, when it is clear that purchase of an entire downtown city block (with a tower on it) is not even 1% of the cost of construction.
Ben Taub is a great place, but what is happening is it's good name is being dragged in to do something untoward. It's like all of the "think of the children" arguments that objectively made the world worse, because it was never about "just" the children, it was about getting what was wanted, while pretending to be doing a noble deed.
Transport as in people to transport the patient inside the hospital to different units or radiology. . You cannot transition a hospital to a new hospital until BOTH ARE UP AND RUNNING. You clearly don’t work in healthcare and have never seen expansions/transitions.
Also have you physically used the area they are talking about? I don’t work at Ben taub, I’m at a different hospital in Houston, I love hermann memorial park and was pretty opposed until I saw the area they were talking about. No one goes there. And while this dumbfuck president tries to get everyone uninsured, we will need an expanded functioning safety net asap. Building a whole entire fucking hospital to shut one of the most safety net hospitals down isn’t one of them.
You clearly work at a hospital, probably as a phlebotomist, or perhaps as a PR promoter, for this effort.
Every large undertaking can be planned. The hospital didn't build itself originally, and all of these problems were solved in the past. Saying they can't be solved in the future is silly.
Of course such a task would be done by a skeleton crew in the new hospital, shifting the lesser cases over until the new hospital is fully operational. If you think that's not a viable plan, you need to study operations. A lot more has been done under harder conditions with a lot less.
$2500 million is $1000 in taxes from every Houston citizen, man, woman, and child. Much of that population doesn't even have the means to earn enough to generate $1,000 additional in taxes, if they could generate $1,000 in taxes at all. Infants don't work, nor do the elderly, nor do a lot of the population, for one reason or another.
And to claim that the only way it all works is THIS ONE WAY, is laughable. There's more than one solution to it. This is the way that someone wants it, and odds are they've sunk a bit of cash into making it work this way.
That you can't imagine there's a second way to solve the problem speaks volumes. That's because there isn't just a second way to solve it, there's a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on.
But here you are, telling other people that they don't know much about hospitals or medicine, when I'm a combat foreign-war decorated hospital corpsman. I simply don't mention it much, because arguments aren't about who is doing the arguing, it's about the quality of the content of the argument. And I don't pretend that military hospitals are the same as non-military hospitals, but you've been taking the conversation and making it personal, when I've been indicating that there's other solutions.
Apparently for you, there aren't. If we don't build the hosptial there, then Ben Taub can never build elsewhere, ever. It's game over. Ben Taub is doomed to never grow, which is a farce of an idea, considering every other hosptial can be seen every ten minues drive anywhere throughout Houston on any major freeway because all of the other ones have figured out how to build outside of the medical center.
I guess Ben Taub is missing something, something that has allowed all the other hospitals to realize that they could expand outside of "we must build next door." Something that all other hosptials are smart enough to have.
I am an ICU doctor at a different Houston hospital. I don’t have any ulterior motive, but I’ve worked at safety net hospitals like this one and unless you’ve worked inside one, you have no idea how fragile they are. Also have you physically gone to the area that they are talking about building on. I was pretty against this plan till I saw it. No one is using it.
You're a physician. The work is done to make you shine, and you walk in and tell everyone how it works, and then you get patted on the back because you're the big dog of the hospital.
I agree they are fragile, but they are also resilient. In 50 years, Ben Taub hasn't failed. The reasons why are many, but it's mostly because there is an entire hospital beyond the physicians.
Much of that is operational (as in business operations). This is an area I would expect you not to deal with, because honestly, it would be a waste of your training for you to be dealing with it.
In every other field, there are means of moving things that most people just don't think of as movable. I suggest you leave those skills to the people who have them. While the skills you have are impressive, being good at something doesn't automatically make you good at others.
My father-in-law was a Hospital Administrator. He has managed many hospitals over his career. We have family that oversees "facilities" in hospitals, and the stuff they swap out without you noticing is impressive.
It can be done. But if you think 1000 beds will just be easy to put next door to your current building, then I'll have to ask the obvious question. How wide is the door? That walkway alone is not large enough to make the transition easy. I've seen the plans It's about wide enough to put two beds on it, if you have very careful control.
So, many of the problems will be present anyway. It's doable, and doable in places that are cheaper, with better freeway access. You just need to exercise your imagination, but not in a fantasy sense, you need to imagine it can be done first, and then you'll start to see that this is a very "one way or no way" argument when it's obvious there are multiple ways to expand Ben Taub.
I never thought of this. You are correct share the load by placing patients in other hospitals.
The Harris health network hospitals are regularly 90% and even 100% (ben taub itself is actually well over its bed capacity at times). Let alone not all the hospitals are equal in the care they can provide. Ben Taub is the only level 1 trauma center in that group of hospitals until 2028. You cant just send patients that need it to other hospitals.
Of course they can move patients to other hospitals.
How many observation patients do they have? Why not have an agreement with other hospitals?
When was the last time you look at houston hospital bed capacity? Heres a hint most havent dropped below 90% (a lot havent gotten below 95%) filled since the beginning of covid. Also observational doesnt mean theres no chance they wont need the facilities provided by that hospital. Yall are trying to manage something yall know nothing about.
Are you talking about licensed or physical capacity or how they are staffed? You are asking a question so you sound knowledgeable so you surely understand the difference.
I have not looked at it since Covid. I will be willing to bet you are referring to how hospitals are staffing. You want to be running at 90% as you staff based on census (occupancy). Doing so is efficient.
Also are you looking at just the TMC or the region?
No, they’re completely wrong. It’s not that Ben Taub wants these patients and refuses to share. The private hospitals in Houston and every other city in the country have layers upon layers of policies to keep these non-paying patients out of their hospitals. No, it’s not legal, but these patients can’t do anything about it. The indigent patients of Houston go to Ben Taub and LBJ because they literally cannot get care anywhere else. Anyone who thinks otherwise has absolutely no clue how our health system is built.
Harris Health has programs where they pay nursing homes to take in residents to lighten the load. Part of this is a societal issue where families can’t or won’t care for their family, & part of it is the true indigent with no one.
They are adding 100 beds. That isn’t going to solve their problem.
You’re mistaking long-term, subacute care that a nursing home provides with the acute or emergent care provided in a hospital environment. The two are completely different. Harris Health does coordinate with outpatient facilities to find a safe disposition for indigent patients, but that has nothing to do with the overwhelming unmet need for acute inpatient medical services. That’s what adding new Hospital beds is meant to help with, and is urgently needed.
Tell me how many beds are tied up at Ben Taub & LBJ with observation patients & then get back to me.
You’re peak Dunning Kruger right now. Try and get a doctor to teach you what observation means in a clinical context and reconsider this later. There’s no denying that there is a huge unmet need for acute inpatient hospital care in Houston. Pretending that any other hospital system will magnanimously decide to take on the burden of unpaid indigent care is completely delusional, and harmful to the people who will die without this kind of help.
Wow such big words, & making the assumption that I don’t understand case management or the discharge issues faced by Ben Taub is rather arrogant especially since you didn’t answer the one question I asked.
I am not a clinician but I am aware of the huge delta between the per diem an observation patient the hospital receives and what Medicare pays. I also know some high percentage of those patients have no business being in an acute care setting but I will wait for you to answer.
Ben Taub keeps about 20 beds for observation patients, any observation patients beyond that end up in the hallways.
They average 30 per day & they also tie up beds not just the hallway, I was surprised it was that low.
My point was this, that one payer class alone is a big problem.
I'm not aware of where to find aggregate data (if it's published), but at least when I worked there, I can't really recall ever having met with an obs patient outside of the dedicated observation unit, and the attendings down there always seemed keen on getting those patients discharged ASAP. I generally didn't see anybody linger down there unless they were a medically complex case, or if there were complications with discharge/transport.
Anecdotally, I never got the impression that the hospital's approach towards observation was meaningfully contributing to the bed shortage, and it seemed like there was a fair amount of pressure from up top to be expeditious with discharges across the entire hospital. But most patients I saw there either had fairly complex medical conditions or were very acute (e.g., freshly peppered with bullets), so it seemed like there was very limited fat to trim when it came to trying to save up bed space. But again, that was just my own perception.
There are a lot of marketplace plans that the other hospitals won’t take. Ben Taub is the only safety net.
I don’t know what % of Ben Taub patients have payers that are not accepted. I assumed most were Medicaid, some Medicare & Medicare Advantage.
I recommend a book called the People’s hospital. It’s actually about Ben Taub. You have zero idea how any of this works. Harris health actually is charity for residents of the county, they don’t rely on insurance.
You read a book, congratulations. Don’t read one on flying a plane & then think you are a pilot.
Here is a screenshot from Harris Health’s website. Yes there is charity care but $ come in for Medicaid, commercial payers, and Medicare.
https://preview.redd.it/qk6kn5x1gycg1.jpeg?width=2986&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=088583071db79ccb6ac5f8876d75db2cc34b70a0
Compare this to other hospitals you idiot. I am an ICU doctor that works in Houston.
Thank you Doc, it isn’t other hospitals. That is why it is trying to take land from a park.
You made a point that they don’t rely on insurance. That is incorrect. 60% of their patients have insurance or govt programs. Do the math, if 40% of the patients are indigent that means they provide no revenue so yes that, 60% are important.
Did you compare it to other hospitals yet? Try the other hospitals in med center. Memorialhermann, st Luke’s. I’m waiting.
60% isn’t enough to make a hospital work. That’s why it relies on charity.
[removed]
This comment has been automatically removed for containing an amazon link with an affiliate code.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
You really have no idea what you are talking about.
Why not build a new hospital east of 288? The county can then sell the land/hospital. The TMC now goes to 288 & further south than ever expected.
The tmc footprint on their 50 year plan was expected to go down holcomb, down fannin and would almost envelops the NRG complex.
I looked at the map a few decades ago, so I don't recall if Ben taub expansion was included on that. There was an argument as to why all the medical facilities should be close together.
I will bet that 99.9% of attendees have never set foot in that portion of the park.
It's isolated from the rest of it by major roads and is really just a walking cut through from a nearby parking lot to Ben Taub and then essentially a place for homeless people to hang out. I walk my dog around Lamar Fleming regularly and I'm not sure if I've ever seen a recreational user of the area.
Just make sure the Hermann Park Conservancy is adequately compensated for this land so they can finish and build out the remainder of their master plan.
Why not shut the hospital down & turn it into parkland? I am being facetious but we as taxpayers don’t want a hospital district utilizing eminent domain.
You love to use language like "we" as if you speak for anyone beyond yourself.
I think it's fine for a hospital to utilize eminent domain, it's very clearly a public purpose for a public facility. Additionally, it's taking wildly underutilized property to accomplish the purpose.
Well someone besides me is complaining so what pronoun should I use?
Dumb/ass
Comparing this sub to the Golden Age of Athens or Elizabethan England would be unfair. The brilliance of posters like you never cease to amaze me.
If I find myself on the opposite side of you, it's a good barometer that I'm in the right.
You want to prevent a hospital you will never use (I'm sure you're a Methodist guy) from expanding to serve patients you will never meet (not from your bubble, who do you know that would go to Ben Taub) because you want to preserve an open piece of land that's currently an underutilized portion of a park that you've likely never been to (you may have gone to Hermann Park, but definitively never this portion of it).
The Conservancy needs the money more than it needs this land. The people of the county will be better served by an expanded Ben Taub, the only question is the value to be paid to the conservancy which will be tremendously beneficial as they rework the course
What have they budgeted for that land? Surely that number is available as they asked us to vote on a $2 bn + bond issue with expansion plans. No one does that except for perhaps county government & Harris Health.
I am fortunate. I have never used a hospital except for stitches.
Part of the long term plan is to expand ben Taub, replace the existing structure, demolish the existing building, and return the current Ben Taub land back to the park. So your comment about turning it into parkland isn’t far off
Today that plan is mainly rhetoric so I’d be more of a fan if the proposal was enshrined in a contract with timelines and financial penalties.
Rebuild it east of 288 & sell the land -if they are allowed.
Building it once will be less expensive, but that reduces the graft.
There should be more medical care for low income persons. Also, perhaps this would open up more resources for trauma treatment like when law enforcement gets shot. I think getting rid of a lot with 20-30 trees and a short cut that saves workers five minutes is worth it.
It seems like most people's opposition to this is pretty knee-jerk and not well thought out. I live nearby and go to Hermann Park most days. That area is basically unused by anyone the vast majority of the time. At the same time, Ben Taub is the only true level one trauma center in the county, which is crazy given our population. They are already maxed for space and trying to build up on the existing structure would further limit the usable area for the duration of the construction, as well possibly damage the existing structure.
While I agree with everything else & with the expansion, Memorial Hermann & Texas Children's are also Level I trauma centers. Not in the county but nearby, UTMB in Galveston is also.
https://www.dshs.texas.gov/dshs-ems-trauma-systems/trauma-system-development/texas-trauma-facilities
Of course, compared to the 5 in Dallas plus 2 in FW plus 1 in Plano, one could easily argue that's not enough (FWIW, Austin & San Antonio each have 2).
I was talking about the American College of Surgeons designation of a level one trauma center, not the state of Texas. Ben Taub has it and has maintained that designation for a long time. Memorial Hermann has it sometimes and doesn't have it other times.
LBJ addition us design to be a level 1 trauma center to shift some of the burden away from Ben Taub.
People keep saying things like this and have no idea what that would actually entail in reality. It would be a massive upheaval of resources that ultimately would have a higher human and financial cost then using this parcel of land with maybe 30 trees small enough you could yell at a guy on the other side and he’d probably know what you were saying.
I'm all in favor the expansion. LBJ is supposed to lessen the load on Ben Taub but it's still won't be enough especially with projected population growth.
Maybe we shouldn't put all the eggs in so few baskets.
We have tons of satellite Hospital complexes on the edge of Houston. St. Joseph's just had a bankruptcy. Seems to me that it wouldn't be overly difficult to create a new center, or join an existing one elsewhere.
Wouldn't mind have some closer to the industrial areas, but then there would be the outcry from the NIMBY crowd or those bemoaning the associated costs.
I wouldn't even say it'd have to be in the industrial areas. Going with the suburbs helps to provide care closer to the incidents. So, Sugar Land, Katy, The Woodlands, & Pasadena (for the industrial but also population base)...save people from having to be transported 20-30 miles away, potentially when there's life-threatening traffic that then requires a LifeFlight, when there's room & existing medical facilities that should be built out.
Harris Health needs to address the medical deserts in Houston.
With what money.
With the bond money they ask voters for every time. Have you seen the LBJ hospital's new facility being built?
It’s a public system have you looked at the financials? Providing medical care to as many people as they serve in Houston is expensive without any significant support from the state or federal government. The system needs to grow because Americans are poor and unhealthy. But the government is not assisting. Something has to break
Good point !
All on duty HPD and HFD as well as city employees clocked in who have a medical emergency go to MH TMC (they can choose to go somewhere else)
Please don't try to pitch it as "no big deal" and it's not much land. It's 9 acres of the park. It means that instead of driving "through" the park, you'll drive along one of it's sides only.
Also that land was donated (And much of the medical center sits on Hermann's previous land) If you start breaking the agreement, the terms of the donation will eventually be eroded. There's lots other parts of the park that are also prime candidates for being nibbled away, like the back holes of the golf course, the section near Alameda Road, etc.
And let's not forget that the bayou itself was part of the land, which now has to major roads running alongside of it, and much of the medical center only has land due to Hermann's generosity.
I think there's some foul play here. The proposal tried to get pushed forward under a cover of darkness. The amount of land being requested is nearly 3x the footprint of the building. Yes, they can build two expansions on the "removed" land and still have some green space between them.
This smacks of the "let's commercialize" the parkland efforts elsewhere. Why ask for 9 acres if you are only going to use a fraction of them. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs.hdnux.com%2Fphotos%2F01%2F54%2F76%2F64%2F28568865%2F5%2Fratio3x2_960.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ac2575e9d33742c20bc5ef091ce8bf53fd19361f6ce1539325af5741727add24 It's because now you have some nice commercial land where none existed before, to sell.
Perhaps the individuals who donated this land a long time ago could not understand the shear amount of medical needed in the future and would agree with its use for those underserved. I’d think people who donated land for everyone to use would want more help for people who can’t get or otherwise. And it’s nine of acres of park no one uses. No one goes from the area around the zoo to that section to use it as a park.
Literally, the only times I've seen it used are those for a smoke break, family of patients, and hospital workers.
You literally ignored that the state can simply permit the under served to go to another hospital. There are many that can use the extra funds to treat the under served. St. Joseph's just went through bankruptcy last year.
The main reason we need to "build a new expansion" is to take the park land, 3x the amount needed for the proposed expansion, so it can be sold again to developers.
Just saw the area they are planning to acquire. Perfectly fine with it.
NIMBYs just doing NIMBY things
If they do take it can they at least leave some green space around the hospital add-on ? The man in charge of expansion doesn't give af he wants it to happen. Why can't they buy out the COH & UH building nearby they can rebuild somewhere else.
Yes, they can leave some green space and make it better than it is now
I just read https://www.harrishealth.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/bt-land-expansion/FAQs%20Revised%20Final%201.02.26.pdf
While they intend to start with building on the 3 acres, they're going to replace the entire hospital over time. The first phase will cost tax payers 2.5 Billion dollars for 1000 beds, or 2.5 Million dollars per bed.
The remaining acres will eventually be built out as hospital too. Since the plans imply replacing the 11.5 acre hospital with the 9 acre one. I would imagine that any green space left over would be limited at best.
It would be more efficient, less expensive, and they would end up with a better hospital if they rebuilt it elsewhere.
I agree. It's just the history and tradition that are tying them to the spot.
In fact the plan is to take 9 acres of green space. Which is a lot more than the building will sit upon.
Now, if they made it better, I guess it would be like a park. Which brings to question why ask for the entire 9 acres to make 6 of them a park, not controlled by the park.
It's not going to go the way people think it will. Just like how Beltway 8 was going to be free after its construction costs were paid off. There will be hints and innuendo that it's going to be green space, but if they wanted that, they wouldn't need to take the whole 9 acres. It's already green space.
I’m willing to bet their CEO has answered that question. Maybe it’s posted on their website.
When I first learned this news, I made a point of checking out that area, I ride my bike past it several times a week. I've never seen a person in this space. It is a shame to lose green space, but this mission and work of Ben Taub is too important.
Build up then
This is a tough one. I'm all about expanding services to the most vulnerable in our community, but green spaces are also important for maintaining the health of our local ecosystem. To me, I would err more on the side of caution for the long term and agree that the expansion into the park is a bad idea. In fact, it might even be more worth while to place a Ben Taub expansion inside of or nearer to a low income neighborhood rather that just having it stay in a concentrated medical district.
In fact, if the will could be assembled to greatly expand the Ben Taub medical system across Houston in general, the one in the medical district could just be used for the most extreme cases, while the surrounding outlying centers could be for general medical needs of the community.
The area they want to expand into is a dump that no one actually uses.
So Harris Health can claim it just so they can build a $450 MM addition that won’t solve their problem. Is that why they tried to sneak this by?
What I find amazing is that it was included as part of a larger bond offering w/o the land. The arrogance is part of the problem.
Probably should start deporting illegal immigrants so they can free up space