LEAGUE CITY — Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas issued an emotional plea to state lawmakers Wednesday to provide storm-ravaged John Sealy Hospital with enough money to return to its pre-storm capacity of 500 beds.

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“As one of my citizens said to me about a month ago: ‘Mayor, Ike came and knocked us to our knees. The state of Texas and board of regents have knocked us to the ground. How in the world are we ever going to recover,”’ she said.

Dr. David Callender, president of The University of Texas Medical Branch, agreed to downsize the hospital from 500 to 200 beds and lay off 3,000 people after Hurricane Ike, which caused $710 million in damage, lost revenue and other expenses.

The hurricane roared ashore Sept. 13, flooding 75 percent of the island and the first floor of John Sealy Hospital. It damaged the hospital’s kitchen, pharmacy, blood bank and sterilization equipment, grinding hospital operations to a halt.

In more than two months since the storm, the hospital has only reopened to deliver babies. Officials expect to reopen it to the general public in January with 200 beds and without its trauma center, which had been rated among the nation’s best.

The hospital could open a trauma center in six to eight months at the earliest and only if the region could support one, Callender said Wednesday.

No Promises

He made no promises of a Level 1 trauma center, even though there are only two others in the region, instead saying the medical branch might consider a Level 2 or 3 trauma center.

If the medical branch received hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding from the state, it could, within two years, expand to 350 hospital beds, including those reserved for state prison inmates, as it awaited reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said.

But Callender made no promises that the expansion would happen.

Callender and Kenneth Shine, interim chancellor at The University of Texas System, said the medical branch’s problems are twofold: lack of money and a lack of patients.

The medical branch, which relied upon clinical services for more than half of its revenue stream, will run out of cash by April or May 2009, Callender said.

It needs an immediate infusion of at least $200 million from the state and long-term financial support from the state to rebound, he said.

Rep. Craig Eiland questioned the funding crisis.

He said he’d be willing to push for a hospital district, but, at 7 cents per $100 property value, a hospital district would raise, at most, $15 million a year.

Shine said the regional hospital tax would have to be more than three times that high — as much as 26 cents per $100 valuation — to adequately fund the medical branch.

Thomas said local and state leaders are willing to ask voters for a hospital tax district.

Patients Dwindling

Fewer patients, especially those with insurance, have been seeking care at the medical branch, Callender said. Before the storm, the medical branch had eliminated 75 of its 575 beds and laid off 100 people, Callender said.

The storm displaced about 35 percent of the island’s population, according to city estimates, and the hospital cannot operate under those conditions, Callender said.

But a hospital downsized to 200 beds can’t run a medical school, said Thomas and A.W. Babe Schwartz, a former lawmaker and only member of the public the on a committee charged with investigating the recovery after Hurricane Ike.

Schwartz called the 200-bed John Sealy Hospital a “farce of a state hospital” and expressed doubt it could adequately educate students.

Shine snapped at the insinuation regents are starving the medical school to the point of closure.

“Let me make it absolutely, unequivocally clear: The regents of The University of Texas strongly and consistently support the UT medical branch on the island.

“It’s very clear they want to see UTMB succeed, and they want to see it become a vibrant and effective institution.”

Seeking Partners

The medical branch is already seeking partnerships with other hospitals across the state in an effort to farm out its resident students, Callender said. That was the plan, even before the storm.

When state Rep. Sylvester Turner asked whether Galveston officials expected the island’s population to rebound enough to support a 500-bed hospital, City Manager Steve LeBlanc said he doubted the island would return to its pre-storm population in the coming years. Although only 65 percent of islanders have returned, LeBlanc said the medical branch served regional patients, not just islanders.

The medical branch, for decades, was a health care destination for uninsured and underinsured patients from Jefferson, Chambers and Brazoria counties, he said.

Now, the hospital has “cast out” those patients, placing a greater burden on hospitals along the Gulf Freeway and in Houston, Thomas said. The hospital once cared for patients injured on offshore vessels and in petrochemical plant explosions, she said.

State Rep. Larry Taylor said the downsizing the medical branch affects Houston residents as much as Galveston residents. The only two area Level 1 Trauma centers now are in Houston. Area residents involved in tragic accidents are being shipped to Dallas, San Antonio and Louisiana, he said.