Driscoll Children's Hospital dodges deep funding cuts

Driscoll Children's Hospital won't face the catastrophic cuts it had steeled itself against, thanks in large part to some behind-the-scenes work by a Republican, a Democrat and a beef processor, CEO Steve Woerner said. At the start of this year's legislative session, the hospital was preparing for a funding loss of $40 million during two years, or 6 percent of the hospital's annual budget of $337.5 million. Cuts that deep would have forced the children's hospital to scale back on services such as cancer treatment, kidney transplants and heart surgery. By the time the session ended and the ink had dried on the governor's signatures, the hospital had lost only $2 million for the biennium, or $1 million per year. Those cuts will cause little to no effect on the hospital, Woerner said.