SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The debate over trauma care in San Antonio continued Tuesday as city leaders considered a resolution related to Methodist Hospital\u2019s proposal to upgrade its Level III trauma center to a Level II facility.<\/p>\n
Council members discussed whether a Level II trauma center could affect the volume of trauma patients transported to Brooke Army Medical Center, or BAMC. They also discussed the effect on University Healthcare\u2019s system, which also has a Level I trauma facility like BAMC. <\/p>\n
The resolution would ask the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, or STRAC, to prioritize BAMC\u2019s patient volume. <\/p>\n
Supporters of the resolution, including District 9 Councilwoman Misty Spears and Bexar County Commissioner Grant Moody, both of whom are on the Joint Military Task Force, said San Antonio is unique because BAMC is the only military hospital with Level I trauma care. <\/p>\n
They said protecting its trauma volume is important to the hospital\u2019s military medical readiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do know is that it\u2019s extremely important to the decision makers up at the federal government and at the Pentagon to know how supportive the community is for military missions,\u201d Spears said. \u201cThey have made that very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moody said the county is looking at a similar resolution. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important that we have that military training, it\u2019s important that the UT Health has educational training there with UHS and trying to navigate that to ensure that both of those aren\u2019t damaged,\u201d Moody said.<\/p>\n
District 4 Councilman Edward Mungia, who is on the Intergovernmental Relations Council, said he wanted more information before taking a position at Tuesday\u2019s meeting. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to make sure I see more numbers and understand this, because I don\u2019t want to be in a position where we say we don\u2019t want medical care,\u201d Mungia said.<\/p>\n
District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito said she also wants to consider Methodist\u2019s ability to operate as a business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m also trying to balance that with a concern of blocking a new hospital from doing what they need to do to serve their patients as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
BAMC said in a statement that the volume and complexity of trauma cases are tied to both exceptional patient care and military medical readiness.<\/p>\n
University Hospital said it supports the resolution to protect BAMC and said an additional trauma center could put patient care and military readiness at risk.<\/p>\n
Methodist has not provided comment, and neither has STRAC.<\/p>\n
Methodist currently has a Level III trauma center and wants to upgrade to Level II. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, the hospital has not filed that paperwork.<\/p>\n
More coverage of this story on KSAT: <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The debate over trauma care in San Antonio continued Tuesday as city leaders considered a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[154893,3084,111399,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-451733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-bamc","tag-city-hall","tag-methodist-hospital","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}