The U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to increase the funding for two federally funded programs aimed at training minority health professionals throughout the nation.

The legislation, which has been spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., would increase the funding for both the Centers of Excellence and Health Career Opportunity Program to $57 million — more than $28 million each in the 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill. The legislation still has to go before the U.S. Senate for approval.

If enacted into law, the additional funds will prevent individual Centers of Excellence programs at medical colleges and universities, including the Hispanic Center of Excellence at Einstein College of Medicine in New York, from closing its doors.

Last year, the Office of Management and Budget, a federal department that assists President Bush in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget, told the staff at the Center of Excellence at Einstein that they would not receive the three years of funding that they had been promised because the services they offered were considered “ineffective.”

The Center was not the only program to suffer such drastic cuts, as Congress has sliced funding for the Centers of Excellence program over the past two fiscal years. That move effectively eliminated almost all federal money available to the majority of academic institutions that have similar programs. In 2005, Congress approved $33.6 million in grants to the 34 centers. Last year, only four of those centers received federal funding, amounting to $11.8 million

Crowley has consistently urged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Health Resources and Services Administration to provide the means to continue these Title VII programs. In April, Crowley and U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., were successful in lobbying HRSA to extend its May 31st deadline for these individual programs at colleges and universities to apply for grant funding through Sept. 20, 2007.

“The House of Representatives took an important step to address the alarming shortage of doctors and other medical professionals working in our poorest communities by investing $57 million in the Centers of Excellence and the Health Career Opportunity Program,” Crowley says. “Together, these initiatives train minorities to serve as health professionals in our most underserved neighborhoods.”

According to the American Medical Association, Blacks and Hispanics make up only 3.2 percent of doctors in the United States. 

“With this boost in funding, these essential programs can continue their critical work in addressing the disparities in minority health care while encouraging more Latinos, African-Americans and Native Americans to enter the medical field,” Crowley says.

“We are really excited,” says Dr. Maria Soto-Greene, director of the Hispanic Center of Excellence and vice dean at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She remains cautious, however, because the U.S. Senate has not acted on the legislation.

The Hispanic Center of Excellence at UMDNJ has been in existence since 1991 and lost all of its funding. It has been forced to collaborate with four other nearby colleges to apply for a grant to stay afloat.