By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

DR. GEORGE Macris, former medical director of the Guam Memorial Hospital, alleged yesterday that Gov. Felix P. Camacho has filled the Guam Board of Medical Examiners with his new appointees in order to create a puppet board that will kill his complaint against Lt. Gov. Mike Cruz.
 “This new board is made up of individuals who are beholden to the governor and lieutenant governor either in a fiduciary manner or by being employees of the government of Guam,” Macris said, referring to the new members who took over GBME yesterday. 
 Macris filed a complaint with GBME against Cruz on Nov. 2, five days before last year’s general elections.
 He accused Cruz, a surgeon, of lying about his medical practice when he said during a gubernatorial debate last year that he was certified by the American Board of Surgery. “Dr. Cruz is not board certified by the American Board of Surgery,” Macris stated in his complaint.
 The complaint also claimed that Cruz declined to report GMH’s $65,000 global settlement in connection with the death of his patient, Esperanza Sablan. The settled malpractice case, which also involved Cruz’s associate, Dr. Ricardo Eusebio, was never reported to GBME as required by law, Macris said.
 The board yesterday elected Eusebio as its new chairman.
 “Dr. Cruz stated that the settlement was done by way of ‘confidentiality agreement’, thereby ‘preventing him from speaking on the matter’,” the complaint stated.
 “There is no evidence of a confidentiality agreement,” Macris stated.
 Moreover, he added, “A confidentiality agreement cannot supersede federal or Guam reporting requirements.”
 “I’m concerned about this situation because by removing a board which may be in the middle of an investigation of the lieutenant governor, you have in fact created an outcome which can no longer determined in an objective manner,” Macris told Variety.
 “You have a majority of individuals who may be in the position to vote against their boss,” Macris said.
  Variety tried to reach Cruz for comment but was told that the lieutenant governor was not available for an interview.
 “Dr. Cruz welcomes any investigation into his practice as a physician,” said Shawn Gumataotao, special assistant to the governor.
 Macris urged the legislature and the Attorney General’s Office to create a commission that will look into the legality of the board composition. “We need others to evaluate what happened today and take action,” Macris said, referring to GBME’s problematic meeting and election of new officers.
 Macris alleged that the appointment of Eusebio to the board constitutes a conflict of interest, considering that he is Cruz’s associate. The rest of the board members, he added, may be beholden to the administration considering that they serve at the pleasure of the governor.
 Eusebio said Macris’s allegations “are just what they are—allegations.”
 “We are all colleagues. Dr. Landstrom is a member of the Department of Surgery. Dr. Cruz is a member of Island Surgery, so is Dr. Kobayashi. If you are looking at it that way, then we all have conflicts of interests,” Eusebio said.
 Gumataotao, meanwhile,  defended the governor’s decision to appoint new members to the board, citing the Organic Act and local statute that “give the governor the authority to determine the members of the board.”
 “Under this new administration, there have been changes to all boards and commissions. There will be more changes even in the Cabinet,” Gumataotao said.
 Macris had his own problem with GMH, which suspended his hospital privileges in the Emergency Department. The GMH board, on Jan. 18 this year, approved the recommendation to suspend Macris’s privileges due to complaints about his alleged poor performance in giving standard medical care.