Medical Center Status Up In The Air

By Jennifer Loren, News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Hundreds of Tulsa health care workers fear they may lose their jobs, but even more may lose their health care if a local hospital closes.

After a meeting with state and city leaders on Wednesday night, workers say they still have no answers. But as we found out they're not alone, even administrators at the OSU Medical Center say they're not sure what the future holds for the hospital.

They say Tulsa is already in a health care crisis and the closure of their hospital would put our city in cardiac arrest.

For years the downtown Tulsa hospital has been a teaching hospital where OSU medical students learn to save lives. But in recent years the future of the facility has been on life support.

"I hope that it doesn't close. That's not an option that we are considering at this point in time," said OSU Medical Center CEO Earl Denning.

Denning says his full time job has been finding a solution for the ailing hospital and for OSU's medical school. That is until last week when OSU announced their medical residents are leaving the privately-owned facility for greener pastures at Saint Francis.

For Denning, who says he did everything he could to keep the residents here, that's a hard pill to swallow.

"But on three different occasions we have offered to donate the hospital to the medical school and in all three occasions they decided not to accept our offer," said Denning.

There are several reasons a deal was never made with OSU, a major deal breaker was the lack of funding from state legislators. All the school needed was $5 million, but legislators said no.

"I personally think the legislature has created a crisis in Tulsa," said Denning.

A crisis because without OSU's residents there's a real possibility OSU Medical Center will have to close its doors.

In 2007, doctors in the emergency room saw more than 38,000 patients and those are the people they say we need to be concerned about.

Patients like Pamela Bobb would have to find another place to receive medical care. But Denning says OSU's patients are the last ones who should be put in that situation.

"This population is the poorest of the poor in Tulsa. They don't have means to travel to the south side," said Denning. "So something has to be done to continue providing services to that population."

Several organizations have stepped up to the plate to work with OSU Medical Center on a solution. Right now, those groups include OU, St. John, Hillcrest, the Kaiser Family Foundation and EMSA.

Administrators hope this group will find a way to keep the hospital open or at least serve the needs of their patients.