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| Vol. 21, No. 23 |
| December 15, 1999 |
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February 1990 by ROSANNE CLARK Texas Medical Center News On Friday, Jan. 12, at 9:18 a. m., the plug was pulled on the clock in the Emergency Center at the old Ben Taub General Hospital. The event marked a final chapter in the illustrious history of this 27-year-old building and the start of an exciting new era in indigent patient care in Harris County. Just a couple of hours previously, the Emergency Center at the new, spacious, $81 million Ben Taub General Hospital next door had opened its doors for business. Its first emergency room patient, an elderly woman with abdominal pains, was rushed in at 7:55 a.m. Soon the rest of the new hospital was filled with both critical and non-critically ill patients and their families. According to an exuberant Michael R. Bullard, administrator of Ben Taub General Hospital, the move was the culmination of many years of hard work and planning by the Hospital District staff and physicians to provide the best publicly funded medical care possible in Harris County. "This is a great day for both the Harris County Hospital District and the citizens of Harris County," he said. "Once our second new hospital, the Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital, is fully operational in July, this county will have the best physical facilities available for the indigent in the United States. It's a dream come true for all of us at the Harris County Hospital District." There's no question that the new Ben Taub General Hospital, located at 1504 Taub Loop, is a giant leap above the old Ben Taub in terms of sheer size and aesthetic appeal alone. At 755,000 square feet of space, the new, six-story facility contains 550 beds, compared to 465 beds at the old facility, and 167 bassinets. Its Level I Trauma Center is twice as large as the old facility with five shock rooms, enabling the staff to treat 10 critically injured patients at one time. Unlike the old facility, the new Ben Taub provides obstetrical services and a neonatal intensive care unit with 20 beds. Bullard says the neonatal intensive care capacity at the Harris County Hospital District will increase by one-third once the Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital comes fully on-line.
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