Tulsa hospitals are scrambling to come up with a solution in response to the announcement that OSU is pulling its residency program out of OSU Medical Center in downtown Tulsa.

We first told you about this story Wednesday night. The move will leave the hospital without many of its doctors and staff beginning next summer. And, the future for the hospital is still unknown.

What we do know is that if the hospital were to close, the more than 38-thousand yearly emergency room patients -- 76-percent of whom do not have insurance or are on Medicaid -- will all be moving to other hospitals.

Five-thousand of those patients are transported by ambulance to OSU Medical Center. If it closes, patients will go to Hillcrest or St. John Medical Center -- hospitals that are already overcrowded and who will have to pick up the slack.

Officials at neither of those hospitals are telling us about how they plan on dealing with the possible influx of patients, saying they would rather wait until next week.

Mayor Kathy Taylor says if the hospital closes, it will no doubt put a burden on Tulsa's other hospitals.

"We're going to explore every option," Taylor says. "Because we know that TRMC, the closure of TRMC will not just impact indigent care patients, it will impact patients all across the city."

The mayor is meeting with hospital officials. She says she will make sure every patient in Tulsa gets adequate health care, even going all the way to the state level.

"Before the legislature goes into session in January, we as a community need to have a solution we are proposing," the mayor said. "And, we're going to have to have some help from the state."

As for Saint Francis Hospital, officials say they can handle an increase in patients, but there are bigger concerns because so many OSU patients live near downtown and not Saint Francis' 61st and Yale location.

There is also the question of overcrowded emergency rooms. Already, ambulances are having to divert patients to other hospitals. Even paramedics say they are having to care for patients while they wait for an E-R bed.

Tulsa citizens we spoke with say they see it all the time.

"That's going to be hours and hours, because it's already crowded everywhere you go."

"Every time I have to go to the emergency room, not matter which hospital you go to, you have to wait a minimum 45 minutes to an hour."

This issue has hospitals all over town scrambling to come up with solutions. There are meetings scheduled for next week. We will stay on top of developments and pass that information along to you as soon as we get it.