Metro Chamber switches focus to OSUMC

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The Tulsa Metro Chamber, which recently had their list of Legislative priorities shot down by the city council, now says the most important legislative issue this year is one we on the forum have been concerned with for some time:

http://www.kjrh.com/news/local/story/Tulsa-Metro-Chamber-pushes-for-OSU-Medical-Center/vL8tzrbMjECAOMlUjbjz0A.cspx

quote:
The Tulsa Metro Chamber says their most important issue for this year's legislative session will be how to keep the OSU Medical Center open. It was the topic of a forum Thursday morning.

At the forum, community leaders and some hospital representatives talked about what still has to happen before the medical center's future is secure.

Already St. John Medical Center has agreed to manage operations at the OSU Medical Center, and the city is working on taking ownership of the building through a new trust.

Now the state funding needs to be secured and legislators need suspend their normal rules for meeting and get a bill passed by the end of February

A panel with representatives from St. Johns and officials from the OSU Medical Center were on hand at the health forum encouraging people to contact their legislators to get support for the plan, and to express just how important the OSU Medical Center is in Tulsa.

"We recognize that letting O-S-U Medical Center close has catastrophic impact on the entire community and everyone's access to health care because it would overload the system," said Susan Harris with Tulsa Metro Chamber.

Leaders with the Tulsa Metro Chamber say there is already a lot of support in the legislature to get the funding passed.