By Louis Zylka
The 830 Times
Mayor Pro-tem Jim DeReus says one key way to strengthen the city’s relationship with Laughlin
Air Force Base is through recruiting more specialty health care providers.
DeReus made his comments about the relationship between Laughlin and local health care
providers during his most recent town hall meeting in mid-April.
During the meeting, DeReus answered questions and concerns about the ways the Del Rio city
government works and its roles and responsibilities. One of the topics discussed at the meeting
was related to people leaving the base due to the lack of certain healthcare service options in
Del Rio and Val Verde County.
DeReus talked about the importance of Laughlin and noted its focus is to support the Air Force
mission of training pilots. DeReus is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who retired from Laughlin and is now a civilian instructor at the base.
“The number one driver of the base closing or not is, are they doing the assigned mission? And
right now, my concern is doing the mission based on our manning. One, we don’t have enough
active duty personnel, (and) we don’t have enough maintenance personnel. We don’t have
enough SIM (flight simulator) instructors. We don’t have enough air traffic controllers. If they
announce a Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRACC), I don’t think that they’ll
close the base. Let me be clear on that,” DeReus said.
DeReus said a survey done six years ago spoke to former civilian employees at the base and
learned that “around 85 percent of all those employees said they left to go get another job or it
was time to retire but they moved out of town because of lack of specialty medical care.”
“The most common specialty that I hear about is dermatology. I mean, we’re in Texas, so it kind
of makes sense,” DeReus said. “We have a SIM instructor, he was actually going through
getting checked out to teach, and he told me, ‘I can’t stay here, my wife is having medical
problems. I have to be somewhere where she’s going to get the medical care that she needs.’
So we spent a lot of resources trying to get him checked out for absolutely no return because of
lack of specialty medical care,” DeReus said.
DeReus mentioned working with former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd in Washington D.C., U.S. Rep.
Tony Gonzales and members of the Veterans Administration (VA) and the Department of Health
and Human Services to get VA resources in the city to help citizens avoid traveling three hours
for a doctor’s appointment. DeReus elaborated more on the bigger picture of people driving
multiple times and facing traffic issues on the highway.
“Support the base, yes, but it has to be within reason, something that we’re actually going to get
a reasonable return on, because, like I said, there are so many issues that people are
concerned about that don’t really play into base closure,” DeReus said.
The hospital’s chief executive officer is focused on finding more physicians and specialty medical care providers.
After the meeting, Jorge Jurado, chief executive officer at Val Verde Regional Medical Center (VVRMC), spoke with The 830 Times via email and mentioned that physician/provider
recruitment is at the top of VVRMC’s strategic plan. Jurado mentioned 2024 was a “successful
year” as the hospital recruited six physicians/providers for its team.
Jurado said 2025 “looks to be a promising (year)” and said the hospital has already added five
advanced physical providers. He said VVRMC is looking to add an obstetrician-gynecologist
(OBGYN) to the team in September.
“VVRMC is fully committed to recruiting both primary care and specialty care
physician/providers,” Jurado wrote.
Jurado then mentioned that one of VVRMC’s long-term initiatives is to establish a rural
residency program with a Texas medical school. He said the hospital is currently having
discussions with two different medical school programs whose administrators are interested in
partnering with VVRMC.
“This initiative would be key in creating a pipeline of medical professionals who would spend
two–three years working in our rural community with the end goal of retaining them as they
complete their residency program,” Jurado wrote.
Jurado then thanked community partners for their support and involvement in the recruitment
process for physician candidates interviewing for positions at VVRMC.
