East Providence, RI – During a press conference today at Bradley Hospital in East Providence, U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed announced that the hospital will receive $168,354 from the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) Payment Program. The funding was made possible by the CHGME Support Reauthorization Act of 2013, which included a provision authored by Whitehouse to expand the program to include children’s psychiatric teaching hospitals.
Bradley Hospital first sought CHGME funding in 2002 but was informed that the hospital did not qualify for the program because only children’s hospitals – not children’s psychiatric hospitals – were eligible. Whitehouse and Reed have been fighting for years to expand the eligibility of the CHGME program to include children’s psychiatric hospitals, and succeeded in changing the law last year. The funds announced today are a direct result of that change.
“Mental health care is just as important as physical health care, but is too often forgotten or ignored,” said Whitehouse. “This funding will support Bradley Hospital’s training program for medical residents which prepares them to treat children’s mental and behavioral health conditions. I was proud to work with Senator Reed to include children’s psychiatric teaching hospitals in the CHGME program, and I congratulate Bradley Hospital on the receipt of this much-deserved funding.”
“This is a smart investment in boosting mental health parity and helping children’s hospitals train the next generation of highly qualified pediatricians. Bradley Hospital and other children’s psychiatric teaching hospitals should have the federal support they need to train doctors equipped to treat mental illness. I am pleased we were able to finally reach an agreement to address the omission of children’s psychiatric teaching hospitals because it is essential to end discriminatory funding policies against children with mental health issues,” said Reed.
“As the number of children in need of mental health care services continues to skyrocket, the ratio of children seeking services versus the number of mental health care providers remains one of the largest disparities in the entire field of medicine,” said Daniel J. Wall, president of Bradley Hospital. “Research has proven the value of early diagnosis and treatment in mental health outcomes in children, so funding to support the training of medical students to practice in the field of psychiatry is not only important, it is essential to the health and wellbeing of our children.”
The CHGME funding will be used to support Bradley’s medical residency training program, including the 2-year Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship and its 5-year Triple Board Residency program, which leads to board eligibility in pediatrics, general psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry. The Triple Board program is one of only ten such programs in the United States.
The CHGME Support Reauthorization Act of 2013 reauthorized the CHGME Payment Program for five years, and for the first time allowed children’s psychiatric teaching hospitals like Bradley Hospital to compete for funding.
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