Terminal care

Attempting to restore both morale and fiscal sanity to a county hospital whose previous gang of Chicago operators face indictments for misappropriation of funds -- a public hospital still hemorrhaging cash and thus requiring taxpayer subsidies at unacceptable levels -- new University Medical Center CEO Kathy Silver and her management team had some tough cost-cutting decisions to make late last year.

They made those tough calls. One of them was to close the hospital's outpatient oncology unit, which was projected to show an ongoing loss of $3.5 million per year. The unit was targeted for closure in part because those services are available elsewhere in the valley.

The announcement of the closure was featured in prominent news stories. Nary a state lawmaker uttered a peep.

Then the CBS News show "60 Minutes" featured Las Vegas oncology patients complaining about the closure. Suddenly, goosed by the TV coverage, the Legislature swung into action. Last week, racing a Friday deadline, the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee in Carson City approved Assembly Bill 433, which ordered UMC to reopen its outpatient cancer center and treat indigent patients from Clark County, essentially for free.

To do so will cost the hospital an additional $3.5 million per year in non-reimbursed losses, hospital staff testified. Despite this, the committee backed the bill without specifying any source for the funds.

The move is well-intentioned. Patients in need of oncology treatment are sympathetic subjects, because a fair number will die of cancer in the near future. In addition, there's no question the closure of the UMC unit created hardships for many patients at a time when they were vulnerable both physically and emotionally.

But how exactly is UMC supposed to pay for this edict from on high in Carson City? If lawmakers believe they know better in this case than the people who run the state's only public hospital, they at least have an obligation to cut a concurrent amount from the state budget to fund the continuation of this service.