[Editor’s note: David Lubofsky submitted his opposite editorial (op-ed) to Kandit’s question, “What are the pros and cons of the legislature either allowing the governor to build the new hospital near Eagle’s Field, or forcing her to build it in Tamuning?” Kandit’s editorial will be published Sunday after all op-eds on this question have been published.]
Opinion by David Lubofsky for Kandit News & Views
So, as per what we have read and heard, the cost of land or property values are expected to rise in the nearby area in Mangilao if the new medical complex is built there, but the current owners that the Government plans to steal their land from, ahh eminent grab, will be paid much less, not the expected increased value. This is far from fair especially on Guam where returning land to the original land owners has been the war cry for decades to the feds.
The governor has many surrogates who tout the Mangilao location and throw around questionable or debatable facts to gather favor from the governor and to try to win over medical consumers with little regard for the real and harshest of facts. Of course, none of her surrogates will debate the medical community on these issues.
FACT: People will die due to distance from the majority of Guam primary care clinics, especially the biggest OB-GYN maternal care clinic on island, if the new medical complex is built in Mangilao. I have my own experience with this, running during a life and death crisis to the emergency room from a clinic in Tamuning with no ambulance nearby. It took me five minutes, but if the ER is in Mangilao it may be 30 minutes.
That’s a fact that no Guam patient or doctor or dead loved one will or can dispute, but the governor and her surrogates will try to dismiss it. Interestingly, it will take the same time for residents in the south to get to Ypao Point as it will to get to the Mangilao proposed site, making the argument that the new hospital will better serve the southern population moot.
FACT: People will die waiting the extra two or three years needed to build the new hospital in Mangilao as compared to the Ypao Point building time as we will be continually exposed to the deadly mismanagement at the Guam Memorial Hospital, which by the way the governor and lieutenant governor refuse to recognize or mitigate. If the goal is improved health care then why not fix the issues at GMH now?
A compromise would be to fix or renovate the southern Department of Public Health and Social Services clinic and the Mangilao DPHSS clinic to be able to give immediate emergency medical care to those folks in those areas or even contract out the medical care to a provider like AMC to offer that. With the saved funds and time building the new medical complex at Ypao this could be easily accomplished, not to mention saving lives.
No matter which direction the government finally decides to build, replacing the current management at GMH will ultimately save more lives than building a new hospital for sure in any LOCATION.
GMH mismanagement has led to deaths as documented by the feds, not to mention the criticisms by doctors, nurses and patients. It’s a puzzle why the Governor ignores this but states she wants to improve health care.
NO ONE SEEMS TO WANT TO DISCUSS IMPROVED MANAGEMENT AT GMH FOR SOME REASON, WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT, MORE CRITICAL AND A BIGGER PRIORITY IN MY OPINION TODAY THAN IS THE BUILDING OF A NEW HOSPITAL.
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David Lubofsky is a citizen advocate for improved accountable health care on Guam.
