Mississippi legislators concurred that the state needs a medical center that specializes in treating burn victims.
They just couldn’t agree which hospital in Jackson is better equipped to assume this responsibility, the University of Mississippi Medical Center or Baptist Medical Center.
So they did the right thing, appropriating $4 million toward the center’s creation but delegating to the state Health Department to decide where it should be located.
That should insulate the decision from politics, which is where it was mired with both UMMC and Baptist jockeying for the money.
The Health Department is best equipped to objectively decide which hospital has the expertise, the resources and the will to run this specialty long term. Those criteria, not connections, are what should matter.
