Tarrant County voters will decide in November whether to approve an $800 million bond issue to improve John Peter Smith Hospital, more than double its mental health beds, and add four new community clinics around the county.
The money also would pay for a new patient tower and trauma and cancer centers at the public hospital’s main campus.
The election is Nov. 6. Early voting starts in October.
It would be the biggest bond election in Tarrant County history.
County Judge Glen Whitley said he’s optimistic it’ll pass.
"We're hopeful,” he said. “We want to be out and educate folks as to what we're building and the fact there's a big need and a big demand."
It's been 33 years since JPS asked voters for bond money.
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The county has added more than a million people since then.
And some say the public hospital just hasn't kept up.
"Getting patients in and out is a long process,” said Bill Burkeholder from Granbury.
Burkeholder, a retired construction worker, has a bad hip.
He said he had to wait for treatment.
"Five hours or so,” he said. “It's a long wait. They shuffle you from one office to the next and it seems like it's never ending."
He has insurance.
But at the bus stop outside the emergency department, people like Wallace Kennedy come and go all day. He’s homeless and said he came to pick up a prescription.
"It's a good hospital. I have nothing bad to say about JPS,” he said.
The county hospital is required to treat everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.
Whitley said one of the biggest needs is increasing the psychiatric care.
"Right now a lot of people sitting in our jail are mental health patients, but for getting off their meds or whatever, wouldn't be there,” he said.
County leaders are promising to do it without an increase in the tax rate.
The hospital district is promising to chip in several hundred million dollars of its own money to help pay for the improvements after the initial request for $1.2 billion was cut to $800 million.
So far, no organized opposition to the bond issue has surfaced.
