Shriners Hospitals for Children are known for their free pediatric care, for their research in pediatrics, and for offering outstanding teaching programs. These hospitals provide patients up to the age of 18 with specialty care in orthopedics, burns, spinal cord injury rehabilitation, cleft lip and palate surgery, and they do it at no charge to the patients and their families.
The economic crisis has caused the Shriners board of trustees to recommend shutting down their hospitals in Galveston, Tex., Shreveport, La., Spokane, Wash., Greenville, S.C., Erie, Pa. and Springfield, Mass. The Galveston hospital, which is recognized throughout the world as a leading burn center, has not reopened since it was severely damaged by Hurricane Ike.
The endowment for the Shriners hospitals has shrunk from $8 billion to $5 billion since the start of the current economic downturn. For the Shriners hospitals that’s an enormous decline in just a short period of time. And the decline in the endowment is expected to continue until our economy turns around. This month, despite those losses, the majority of the 1,500 delegates to the Shriners annual conference voted to keep open all the hospitals recommended for closure.
Our government has bailed out banks and car manufacturers and is providing lots of stimulus dollars to states and local governments.
The federal government has appropriated $787 billion to bail out insurance conglomerate AIG, a number of big banks, GM and Chrysler, and to stimulate the economy in order to reverse the loss of jobs. Why can’t the federal government provide some of these funds to the Shriners Hospitals for Children?
Thus far, federal stimulus dollars have done little to stimulate the economy. Local communities have been awarded funds for projects they never envisioned and did not ask for. That sure looks like a big pork boondoggle. If the government would provide some of these funds for the Shriners hospitals, it would ensure that American children and children from other parts of the world would continue to get excellent free medical care at these hospitals. It is even possible that those federal funds would create new jobs, but if not, they will certainly save jobs.
Is it possible for federal stimulus dollars to be awarded to the Shriners hospitals? Yes, but only if our taxpayers start contacting their congressmen or congresswomen and their U.S. senators to demand that some of those stimulus funds be spent to help keep all Shriners Hospitals for Children open.
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