The North Carolina Senate is crunching numbers to consider building a new teaching hospital for East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, a source close to Senate leadership has told Carolina Journal.
That means Vidant Medical Center, ECU’s teaching hospital, now battling with the UNC Board of Governors over issues of governance, may get the boot.
Vidant Health in April overhauled its affiliation agreement with UNC, stripping the UNC BOG of all appointment power to VMC’s board. The action blindsided UNC. System lawyers later took Vidant to court. The case now is in mediation.
A Senate budget proposal released earlier this week included a provision to cut $35 million from VMC’s Medicaid reimbursements.
The Senate is still looking at figures, and doesn’t have a solid cost estimate, though some have floated spending of about $500 million, the source said.
UPDATE, 3:30 p.m. Responding to a query from CJ, Vidant spokesman Jason Lowry said the company wasn’t aware of the Senate was looking into the cost of building a new teaching hospital for the Brody School.