Nueces County Hospital District to contract with Christus Spohn to delay residency end

The Nueces County Hospital District and Christus Spohn Health System will negotiate a six-year $21 million deal to temporarily save the hospital's emergency residency program.

The hospital district plans to step in with funding if Christus Spohn agrees to delay the termination of the residency program until 2029-30.

The Nueces County Hospital District Board of Managers voted Friday in support of the six-year, $21 million deal points. The hospital district and Christus Spohn still need to draw up a final contract, which the board is expected to vote on during the board's next regularly scheduled meeting on Dec. 12 to authorize Nueces County Hospital District administrator Jonny Hipp to sign the contract on behalf of the hospital district.

Christus Spohn announced this fall that the emergency medicine residency program would end by June 2026. In response, resident and faculty doctors from the program mobilized, working with local leaders and elected officials to support the program.

The three-year residency trains emergency room doctors and is the only emergency medicine residency program in the Coastal Bend. It includes about 50 doctors, including 36 residents, as well as their faculty teachers.

Though residents are recruited from across the country, many choose to stay in Corpus Christi or South Texas, serving patients in local emergency rooms after graduation, many current faculty members have said in recent public meetings.

In response to input from the Nueces County Commissioners Court and medical professionals from across the community, the Nueces County Hospital District began talks with Christus Spohn.

In mid-November, the Nueces County Hospital District Board of Managers considered negotiating an $18 million, five-year agreement, but declined to move forward with those deal points after hearing from emergency medicine residency faculty that it was too temporary of a solution.

Hipp characterized the current six-year, $21,250,000 million deal as a way of buying time to find a more permanent solution — some have expressed hope that another hospital might agree to take over the program from Christus Spohn or that Christus Spohn might decide to keep the program long-term.

Three doctors and residency faculty members addressed the board during public comment Friday in support of the agreement, echoing comments made to the Nueces County Commissioners Court earlier this week. Doctors also lined the walls of the meeting room and waited while the board discussed the agreement framework during closed session.

Under the term sheet approved Friday, the hospital district could potentially pay Christus Spohn about $1.4 million for the 2024-25 academic year, about $2.8 million for 2025-26, and $4.25 million annually for 2026-27 through 2029-30 to maintain the program through the end of the agreement.

The money would come from the hospital district's reserves.

The terms also include language indicating that if Christus Spohn decides to discontinue the program and the hospital district does not oppose this decision, the hospital district would be able to find an alternate institution in Nueces County to accept the transfer of the program.

The hospital district and Christus Spohn also plan to conduct a community needs assessment.

The hospital district works to meet the healthcare needs of Nueces County's indigent, or low-income, residents, including through a long-standing partnership with Christus Spohn.

"From the very beginning, when we first met in the courthouse, I was one of the believers that we should fund this program," board member Arthur Granado said about the residency program during the Friday meeting.

Granado said that his support is based on the hospital district's mission to serve the indigent population, who often rely on emergency room doctors when seeking medical care.

"That is our role, to take care of indigent care," Granado said. "If it's going to cost us money, that's what we have to do."

The rest of the board agreed, expressing gratitude for the cooperation of Christus Spohn and the medical community.

Christus Spohn CEO Dominic Dominguez said the agreement to extend the residency program is "wonderful."

"We look forward to working together," Dominguez said. "...it resolved itself in the manner that it should between Christus Spohn and the hospital district."

The health system also emailed a written statement after the Friday meeting.

“With this enhanced partnership with the hospital district, we will be able to confidently invite more classes of residents into the program in the future knowing they will have a sustainable and high-quality learning experience at CHRISTUS Health,” the statement reads.

Karen O'Conner Urban is a member of the Christus Spohn Foundation Board of Directors, which supports the health system through philanthropy. Nueces County Judge Connie Scott also appointed Urban to serve on a working group formed after the termination of the emergency medicine residency program was announced.

"Nobody was willing to sit back," Urban said. "We all wanted to make a commitment to continuing this program. We certainly are blessed to have six years and we would not have if it had not been for NCHD and this board of managers truly recognizing the importance of the emergency medicine residency."

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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Hospital district, Christus Spohn reach tentative agreement