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UNM President Robert Frank and the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce have publicly expressed support for the proposed $146 million addition to UNMH.
The proposed addition will create an adult-care hospital that will include 96 hospital beds to decrease emergency waiting room time, which is about 24 to 36 hours on average, by making space available for patients who require inpatient care. The hospital, which will be located near Lomas Boulevard and I-25, will allow emergency room beds to be used exclusively for emergency cases.
On Sept. 17, UNM representatives sent a letter to the State of New Mexico Board of Finance asking to postpone final approval of the expansion after members of New Mexicans for Equal Health Care Access and the Rio Grande Foundation said the purpose of the hospital was unclear and that approval for the hospital did not include sufficient public conversation.
The adult-care hospital was approved in public meetings by the Board of Regents and its Finance and Facilities Committee, the Health Science Center Board of Directors, the UNM Hospital Board of Trustees and the New Mexico Higher Education Department.
Approval from the State Board of Finance was on the agenda for the Sept. 18 State Board of Finance meeting, but was postponed.
In response, the Board of Regents and members of UNMH set up four public meeting dates this month to address the concerns.
In a letter to the Albuquerque Journal on Sunday, Frank said an increase in hospital beds and jobs are critical to the health of New Mexicans and the economy. He said that, according to the UNM Bureau of Business and Economic Research, the construction of the hospital may employ about 1,000 workers and the hospital may include about 530 new jobs.
“The approval of UNM’s proposed adult-care hospital would be a shot in the arm to both,” he said in the letter. “The expansion of the hospital … would provide 96 inpatient beds to ease the chronic backlog in our emergency room.”
Frank said that as long as he is president of UNM, standard business practice will include preference for employing in-state workers for future projects. He said about 95 percent of the money the University has spent on subcontractors has been paid to subcontractors within the state.
“We are partners in building this economy and community that is so vital to us all,” he said. “Working together to promote employment opportunities for New Mexico as we strengthen the health care delivery infrastructure is a win-win for the citizens of our state.”
In a letter to Regent President Jack Fortner on Sunday, Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Terri Cole said the chamber supports the new adult-care hospital because the addition is necessary to fulfill UNMH’s mission to provide ample patient care. She said the occupancy rate forces some patients to seek care out of state and that the project will ensure that patients stay within New Mexico.
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“New Mexico’s health care systems are an important part of creating a competitive community,” she said in the letter. “The Chamber’s principle health care focus has been and continues to be to support projects and policies which promote the quality of health care and its affordability.”
But in a press release on Oct. 2, New Mexicans for Equal Health Care Access spokeswoman Kim Moss said UNMH representatives’ claims regarding high occupancy rates are false and that the national standard hospital occupancy rate is 75 percent, which is higher than UNMH’s occupancy rate as reported to the New Mexico Hospital Association.
According to NMHA, the occupancy rate at UNMH is 63 percent, which is less than the 90 percent occupancy rate that UNMH representatives have used as reasoning behind the need for the addition.
According to the New Mexico Hospital Association Market Share Data, UNMH and the UNMH Sandoval Regional Medical Center, which contain a total of 652 patient beds, are occupied by an average of about 413 patients daily.
“This clearly shows that UNMH does not have the need for another hospital at taxpayers’ expense,” Moss said. “UNMH wants to take money from the fund for the uninsured and use it for a boutique hospital that it doesn’t need.”
Moss said UNMH should reconsider the new hospital and use taxpayer money to fund clinics that will help New Mexicans.
The proposal for the hospital will go before the State of New Mexico Board of Finance meeting today.
