In Wake of Budget Challenges, Sen. Brown Calls for Continuation of Children's Graduate Medical Education Program
Press Release
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today called for sustained and continued investment in our nation's pediatric workforce. While serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, Brown authored the Children's Hospitals Education and Research Act of 1998, which first proposed the Children's Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program. This program, which ensures more medical training for professionals treating children, has been eliminated in the President's budget request for Fiscal Year 2012. Leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives have promised to pass a budget with even deeper cuts than the President's request.
"It's critical that we reduce our deficit, but we shouldn't do it on the backs of medical professionals and the sick children they treat," Brown said. "The Children's Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program was created to ensure that more doctors have the training they need to treat our nation's children. This successful program should be funded so that critical work can continue at Ohio institutions like Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, and Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus."
President Obama's FY 2012 budget proposal calls for an elimination of CHGME funding. Created by Congress in 1999, the CHGME program allows children's hospitals to sustain, improve, and expand teaching and training programs. As a result, these hospitals are working to reverse a decline in pediatric residencies that began in the 1990s. Most recently, a survey by the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions found that significant doctor shortages in many pediatric specialties is delaying the ability of children to gain access to timely care. These shortages contribute to vacancies in children's hospitals that often last 12 months or more.
Ohio is home to seven institutions that have depended upon on CHGME funds. A list of these facilities and funds they have received in prior years from the CHGME program can be found below.
Source