Governor falls short with funds for UNLV med school

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015 | 2 a.m.

“What happened to our medical school?”

That is the only question I asked after Gov. Brian Sandoval’s State of the State speech a couple of weeks ago. I suppose when the governor talks about how we are doing, why we are doing it and what he is going to do next, and the only question is about the UNLV medical school, then it must have been a pretty good speech!

But where do we go from here? On Monday, the Nevada Legislature opens its 2015 session. Will our elected lawmakers be on good behavior? Will the Republicans, who now own both houses of the Legislature, accomplish what Democrats couldn’t achieve when they were in control?

I am betting on our good governor to hold the crazies in his party tight enough so that they can’t upset a good thing, which means that education, health care and myriad other infrastructure needs in our state finally will get addressed. And that the business community across the state finally steps up and is part of the investment that needs to be made. (In other states, they call that a tax increase.)

I know I am a bit late to the post-State of the State party, but it seems to me the words Sandoval spoke were the words everyone in Nevada needed to hear. It mattered not whether they were uttered by a Republican or a Democrat or some other political designation that makes people feel good about themselves. The fact is that they were words that had to be uttered and needed to be heard by all who live and work in the Silver State. We’ve long needed to grow up and take responsibility for ourselves and our state.

There was, though, one area in the governor’s speech where I got confused. It had to do with taking advantage of the lowest-hanging fruit in feeding the long-term growth of Southern Nevada. And that would be the UNLV Medical School, which our governor told us was one of his top priorities. That’s good, because 70-plus percent of Nevadans live in the southern part of the state, and getting our own medical school is a priority.

This is where I would tell the well-worn joke about where Las Vegans go for good medical care — the airport. But when UNLV has its own medical school, that joke will be history and our future will be one of high-quality medical care available to everyone who lives in this part of the state.

No more will people who can afford it have to travel to other parts of the nation for quality care. No more will people who can’t afford to leave be subject to the hit-and-miss treatment and outcomes that define much of the critical needs that a population of 2 million people presents. We are the largest metropolitan area of the country without a medical school, and it is time we had one of our own!

So said the governor. But then he told us how much he was committed to spend for that school, and that is where I got confused.

The idea of a UNLV medical school has been kicked around for a while but didn’t get traction until the folks at Brookings Mountain West and the Lincy Institute at UNLV focused our collective attention on the pressing need. Not only would it positively affect the medical outcomes of the people who live and work in Southern Nevada, but the economic impact on our region would be off-the-page wonderful.

It will not only generate thousands of high-paying jobs and millions of dollars in high-impact grants, but further promote medical tourism that is a perfect fit for a region already prepared for tourists!

The problem is there has always been a minimum financial investment needed from the state of Nevada to make our dream the reality it needs to be, and in a time frame that all will agree is doable. We don’t need to discuss the millions upon millions of dollars the state provides to the medical school in the northern part of the state.

Good for them; they need a medical school, too. And they have had one, for more than 40 years!

Now it is our time and our turn. And all it costs is a fraction of the money that has been invested in Reno’s medical school in today’s dollars. That number has been $27 million. No more, no less.

That is the number of the state’s needed investment in UNLV’s medical school that, once open, will generate economic impact in the billions of dollars. Did you hear that? Invest millions and return billions to Southern Nevada. That is what we call low-hanging fruit!

So when Sandoval proclaimed the UNLV medical school his top priority for UNLV, I was shocked to hear his commitment of only $9 million to make it happen. I was not the best math student in school, but I do know the difference between 9 and 27.

Perhaps it is the new math the young people are learning, or perhaps the people planning the medical school found a way to stretch $9 million into $27 million.

Or, perhaps the priority the governor placed on the health and well-being of Southern Nevadans isn’t quite as high as he has led us to believe.

I hope as soon as the Legislature convenes this week that the Southern Nevada delegation — Democrats and Republicans — will get to the bottom of this matter right away. After all, low-hanging fruit is only good until it starts to rot.

A UNLV medical school and the medical needs of more than 2 million people is not a plan that deserves to rot.

Brian Greenspun is owner, publisher and editor of the Las Vegas Sun.