Houston’s Riverside General Hospital will receive a $1 million grant from the Department of Defense to treat active-duty troops and veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder, officials announced Monday.
The historically black facility will accept TRICARE, the health plan for military personnel and their families.
“Our commitment will be ongoing and forever,” said Riverside President Earnest Gibson III, speaking to veterans who attended a ceremony in the hospital’s lobby Monday afternoon. “You are the true heroes. How do you treat your heroes? You give them the best, and this great historic institution will certainly give them the best.”
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said she began championing the creation of a PTSD treatment center at Riverside five years ago after visiting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We never leave a comrade behind, and that is what we’re saying today,” Jackson Lee said. “We will leave no soldier and no soldier’s family behind.”
A pressing need
Jacobi Montgomery, an Army veteran, said his own life illustrates the pressing need for such centers.
Montgomery said he had a hard time coping with civilian life after serving in Iraq.
“Got into a few tussles with my family,” he said. “They didn’t know how to deal with me. I couldn’t deal with myself, and ended up on the streets.”
Now Montgomery lives at The DeGeorge at Union Station, a supported housing facility for Houston veterans, where he counsels other struggling vets to seek help.
On June 19the hospital will turn 92 years old. Formerly the Houston Negro Hospital, Riverside opened in 1927. It was built by wealthy Texas oilman J.S. Cullinan, who donated $80,000 to construct the original 50-bed hospital in memory of his son, Lt. John Halm Cullinan. The younger Cullinan had died at age 36 after serving in France during World War I.
Continuing the mission
The grant brings Riverside full circle, Gibson said.
“It allows us to continue with our mission for which the hospital was founded, and that is to care for our soldiers and honor them,” he said.
The new PTSD treatment center will occupy the historic wing’s entire second floor following renovations.
Gibson expects the center’s new offices, therapy and exam rooms to open in about 90 days, with an initial capacity for 30 to 50 patients a day.
lindsay.wise@chron.com
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