Advocates claim Dell Med School misspent millions

Local health advocacy groups have released a report alleging UT Dell medical school misspent millions of dollars. The groups claim the school should have spent that money on healthcare for the poor.

A coalition of health advocacy groups and lawyers claim UT Dell Medical School misspent some of the $105 million dollars awarded to them from Central Health.

“They spent the funds on things unrelated to indigent healthcare,” said Fred Lewis, attorney and activist.

Indigent is another word for the poor. Lewis says they found that the school co-mingled the money and allocated it toward other school expenses.

“UT systems budget shows they expected to spend the money on government affairs, communications, students admissions, all sorts of things most of us wouldn't consider indigent healthcare,” said Lewis.

“These allegations aren't true,” said Dr. Clay Johnston, dean of Dell Medical School.

The school says they know how they plan to spend the money over the next five years. In the spirit of transparency they've released details on that, and plan to release even more.

“Only a fraction has been spent at this point. We have a fraction of the faculty we'll ultimately have. It's spent on direct delivery of care, design of care but also on starting a medical school,” said Johnston.

Activists are calling on a full-on audit from a third party, such as Travis County commissioners.
Despite the allegation, Johnston says dell is allocating time and money to indigent care and just need more time.

“Already we've done a tremendous amount in the community and delivery to the indigent, but just wait we are just getting going,” said Johnston.

“There is nothing wrong with providing funds to the University of Texas Medical School, so long as they went to indigent healthcare, they could've set up an indigent healthcare program and spent the money on clinics and other things that would benefit the poor,” said Lewis.