HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Vendors for Guam’s public hospital are starting to get paid, and a plan is in place to spend $20 million on improving conditions at the facility, according to officials at the Guam Memorial Hospital Authority.
GMH received a combined $50 million in funding from the general fund and the American Rescue Plan Act. $30 million is to go toward paying down outstanding debts to vendors.
“They started paying some of the vendors since (Oct. 23). But (the) Department of Administration is the one in control of those funds, and so they are the ones making the direct payments to the vendors,” GMH Administrator Lillian Perez-Posadas told the hospital’s board of trustees on Wednesday.
Perez-Posadas characterized the process as “slow,” but said, “We are pushing the DOA team to try and get these vendors paid as quickly as possible.”
A temporary fix, the $30 million was made possible through Public Law 37-43, which essentially bailed out the hospital after its dire financial situation was made known during an oversight hearing with the Legislature’s Committee on Health, Land and Justice.
With the legislation came the governor’s commitment of $20 million to address the hospital’s physical needs. GMH nurses who testified during the oversight hearing spoke about the hospital’s failing structural integrity, made only more evident by Typhoon Mawar.
“The $20 million from the ARPA that the governor committed is for our (capital improvement) projects to solidify and really strengthen the structure of our facility. So, hopefully, if there’s another future typhoon, … our old faithful hospital can withstand that,” Perez-Posadas said.
William Kando, the hospital’s administrator of operations, broke down for board members exactly how the $20 million will be spent.
“One of the top ones: We need to try to replace our chillers as quickly as possible. That accounts for $7 million right there. For structural and architectural improvements (for) the building, we are talking about including the entire envelope of the hospital. Different projects like the liquid oxygen enclosure, medical vacuum, Z-wing demolition, parking lot expansions, the (neonatal intensive care unit) project that will include both the (architecture and engineering) design,” Kando said.
A package deal, Kando said the cost for structural and architectural improvements carries a ballpark figure of $6.7 million.
“Another $3 million for additional (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) upgrades because we need to continue to replace our air handling units (and) different things associated with the HVAC system,” Kando said.
GMH is also directing $1.7 million toward improving its information technology network, he said.
“That would include servers, firewalls, protective domain management system, access control system replacement and surveillance system replacement,” Kando said.
Finally, roughly $1.6 million will serve as “seed money” for several projects that are expected to be funded through federal grants.
“Local share because we submitted (a) grant last week for hazard mitigation. One of them is to replace our main panels, subpanels, 1.6 megawatt generator and also the perimeter road. So if the (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grant is approved, we need a 10% share,” Kando said.
Aside from these capital improvement projects, Perez-Posadas said the hospital has made progress in addressing the mold issue as part of Typhoon Mawar recovery efforts.
“In terms of mold mitigation, we procured the service of an industrial hygienist who was on site two weeks ago and has collected some sampling specimens for analysis, so we are waiting for the result of that one,” Perez-Posadas said.
Guam Memorial Hospital is seen Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023, in Tamuning.
