EDINBURG, Texas - Driscoll Children’s Hospital-Rio Grande Valley is about to start region’s first pediatric residency program and the hospital’s leaders are expecting great things from it.
“We’re on the verge of starting the Valley's first pediatric residency program, which will be a game changer for the future generation of pediatricians here… in the Rio Grande Valley,” said Matt Wolthoff, president of Driscoll Hospital-Rio Grande Valley.
Wolthoff gave details of the new program when speaking at a press conference in Weslaco. The press conference was called to announce a $500,000 gift by Knapp Community Care Foundation to establish the Mid-Valley Pediatric Assistance Endowment. Driscoll match that amount dollar-for-dollar for a total of $1 million.
In his remarks, Wolthoff spoke about Driscoll Children’s Hospital-Rio Grande Valley’s first year of operation. He said it has been highly successful
“I want to start by saying it's been just over a year since we opened our doors here at Driscoll Children's Hospital-Rio Grande Valley, and it's been a tremendous year. In that year, we've seen over 20,000 children in our emergency department. We performed over 5,000 surgeries in our ORs. We've admitted over a thousand babies in our neonatal ICU. And the milestones on the list continues to build as we grow,” Wolthoff said.
“Many of those children that I just mentioned would have had to travel in the past for that care, to receive that level of specialty care. They would have had to travel to Corpus Christi or to Houston or to San Antonio, and so we've been able to provide that care at home, and that's why we built this hospital.”
And while the first year has been good, the best is yet to come, Wolthoff promised.
“So, the first year was wildly successful by nearly all performance indicators. But the great news is that we're just getting started. We are going to continue to grow and continue to meet the needs of our community. So we're recruiting more and more pediatric sub-specialists to our community. We're increasing access here at home,” Wolthoff said.
“The bottom line, again, is that we'll continue to grow and expand services to meet the needs of our growing community here in the Rio Grande Valley, and that that includes a major part of that is the Mid-Valley.”
Wolthoff said none of this would have been possible without the support of Driscoll’s community partners, including Knapp Community Care Foundation.
“Driscoll Children's Hospital was built on philanthropy and the vision of our founder, Clara Driscoll, when she left her entire family's estate to create our foundation, ensuring children in South Texas would always have access to high quality health care regardless of their ability to pay.”
