Editor's Note: This is a very brief update on the decisions made at the Monday, July 17, 2017, emergency meeting of the GRMC Board of Trustees. A much more comprehensive article will follow later on Tuesday.

By Mary Alice Murphy

The emergency meeting of the Board of Trustees of Gila Regional Medical Center took place on Monday, July 17, 2017, to make a decision on services for the GRMC Cancer Center.

The meeting finally began at 2:30 if front of an almost capacity crowd in the Commissioners' Chambers of the Grant County Administration Center.

Trustees went into executive session at about 4:30 p.m. after hearing almost an hour's worth of public input, uniformly asking the trustees to retain the current provider.

At about 7:50, the trustees came out of closed session. The first item of discussion was the contract between GRMC and the UNM Cancer Center.

Every trustee made comments before a motion was made to approve the contract.

Board Chairman Jeremiah Garcia did a roll call vote. Trustee Joel Schram voted yes; Trustee Dr. Victor Nwachuku voted yes; Trustee Mike Morones voted yes; Trustee Jeannie Miller voted yes; Trustee Tony Trujillo voted no for reasons he had outlined at the beginning of the meeting; and Garcia recused himself from the vote.

The other contracts that were required for equipment, software and licenses for oncological treatments received all ayes, with the exception of Trujillo, who voted no on each one. Garcia voted yes on them, "honoring the wishes of my fellow trustees."

More details will come in a future article. But New Mexico Cancer Center is gone and University of New Mexico Cancer Center will provide services after as short a transition as possible, according to GRMC Chief Executive Officer Taffy Arias, who said "truly our wish is for the best cancer care to provide to our patients, whom we embrace and love. We know this is traumatic for them. We will be right there with them and hope they realize it will be the best for them."