Dispute between Abbott and Dallas County judge shows confusion over coronavirus resources
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s chief of staff threatened to move an overflow medical facility away from Dallas County if county officials do not confirm they need the resources, according to a letter written to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
Luis Saenz, Abbott’s chief of staff, wrote in the letter that Jenkins suggested the county would not be using the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center as a hospital for COVID-19 patients. Abbott announced at a press conference on March 29 the center would be used for coronavirus patients in the Dallas-Fort Worth area if needed.
“Other jurisdictions need quick access to the facilities currently set up in Dallas,” Saenz wrote. “If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow, the process may quickly begin to move this additional hospital capacity away from Dallas.”
At his daily 4 p.m. press conference, Jenkins said the implication that he was rejecting the use of the convention center was untrue.
“The letter written is a very odd letter in that it intimates that we don’t want those resources,” Jenkins said. “We are working hours and hours a day to stand up that resource. I want the public to be clear. Dallas County, and everyone else working on this, the unified hospital system response, does want that resource.”
Jenkins said a 10-minute call with state, city and hospital officials — including Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and the Dallas director of emergency management — “was the genesis of this silly letter.”
“At no time did we tell them, ‘take the assets from Dallas, we don’t need them here,’” Jenkins said.
But a voicemail from a department of defense general shows officials were confused after the call with Jenkins.
In a voicemail for a Texas Department of Emergency Management official, the general said Jenkins and his team said they “have no intention of moving patients into the convention center.”
“And the department of defense is confused,” the general says in the voicemail.
Jenkins said he told officials Dallas County did not need to use the convention center for patients yet because the hospital has plenty of room for patients.
“We don’t need to send people from a state-of-the art hospital to a convention center when our hospital’s at 50% capacity,” Jenkins said.
Saenz said in the letter that Jenkins’ decision is “at odds with the needs and concerns articulated by Mayor Eric Johnson — as well as the needs of other local officials in the Dallas County Area.”
Johnson responded to the letter in a statement released at 3:50 p.m, saying he was “stunned and deeply disappointed” on the county’s position on the pop-up hospital.
“I am alarmed that these medical resources are now at risk as we begin preparing for an anticipated surge in COVID-19 cases,” Johnson said in his statement.
When asked about Johnson’s statement, Jenkins said the mayor must have seen the letter and “jumped to the conclusion that it must be true.”
Jenkins also said if he were to talk with Saenz, he would tell him “I’ve got the same cellphone number I did when Rick Perry was governor, and I would encourage you to pick up the phone and use it.”
The convention center, which can hold 240 beds, will serve as a federal medical station for patients to stay if they are discharged from the hospital but cannot go home yet. The majority of medical care will still take place inside the hospital.
This story was originally published April 5, 2020 at 3:57 PM.
