Guam Memorial Hospital’s answers to public concerns and even to questions from doctors are – in their totality – comical. They are jokes. GMH officials’ answers to concerns about patient safety, medical standards, mold infestation, leadership ability, financial status, corruption, a new facility, and the poor conditions in the maternity ward are whimsical.
These guys think we’re idiots.
Take their response to the recent audit into the scandalous MedHealth contract. GMH’s lawyer, Jeremiah Luther, wants to keep out of prison the GMH officials who broke the law by “reasoning” with us that so long as he signed off on the contract, it was legal. He quite literally argued that his position granted him the authority of judge, jury, and executioner. As long as he says it is the law, it is the law.
Wow.
Faced with evidence through an independent audit that GMH lost money and regressed during the period of the MedHealth venture, GMH administrator Lillian Perez Posadas doubled down. According to her and all the numbers and evidence she didn’t provide, the Office of Public Accountability is wrong and GMH benefitted from the MedHealth contract.
It did, did it? Call me a civilian, but through my simple eyes, all I’ve seen since 2021 is a complete meltdown of GMH; a deterioration of everything from its finances to physical plant to its adherence to acceptable standards of care.
Reporters waved in her face a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (known as CMS) that said a series of missteps that failed to meet appropriate standards led to the death of Asher Dean Lubofsky. That report contained numerous recommendations for improvement, including to GMH’s reporting protocols and practices.
To this day GMH has not recognized its failure that led to the young boy’s death, nor has it ever provided the public any assurance it has changed its practices in order to spare from others the grief Asher’s parents go through every day. In fact, several more of its patients and survivors of its patients have claimed malpractice.
Asked why GMH officials are pushing for the new hospital not to be built at Oka Point, GMH deputy William Kando actually argued against the salt spray of Tumon Bay and the supposed fire ants at the site.
That same deputy and several other highly-paid GMH officials have been receiving pay raises, promotions, and above-step recruitments in the midst of GMH’s top two continuing reasons for why nothing improves there, which I summarize succinctly: 1) We don’t have enough money; and 2) We just can’t figure it out.
Funny. Those same excuses have been used since 2014 to explain why there isn’t a new maternity ward. Ten years later, and now it’s being cooled by standing fans.
It’s the procurement process! It’s the senators! It’s the insurance companies! We don’t make enough money! Our payers aren’t paying! We don’t have enough staff to collect! We lack the specialty nurses! It wasn’t us, I swear!
GMH is like a lying, cheating, toxic husband. Nothing is his fault.
He’s a joke and needs to grow up.
