Boy, am I late. I just read an article in the Silver City Daily Press from August 4, 2021 about Dr. Darrick Nelson of HMS being fired. We are losing a good doctor, an asset. With his leaving, we will have a void in our community.

It is extremely hard to get and retain qualified doctors in our community, especially younger ones, because they want what a big city can offer. If they have school age children, they want better education than our public schools.

I have heard, and my understanding is, that (HMS) Hidalgo Medical Services is going to become almost a full-fledged Pediatric clinic. There will be one general practitioner and the rest pediatricians. Dr. Armendariz will be the one G.P. for the rest of us. I was told this by a person at HMS who wants to stay anonymous (fear of retaliation) and rightly so. How will the rest of us, who are patients at HMS, receive quality care? Are we going to have long waits or long drives to get care that we need?Dr Nelson is having to leave us due to his disagreement with the current CEO. Most, if not all, of the employees at HMS disagree with the direction the CEO is taking the clinic. They wish that they could say something about this, but they are afraid of retaliation from the CEO, losing their jobs and or making their employment unbearable. (Even if all of the employees went to the CEO at the same time, they are afraid of retaliation). My understanding is that the CEO does not care, even if there were no qualified people to replace the ones leaving, they would still be retaliated against, and either made so miserable that they quit or be fired like the four women some years ago who worked under the current CEO, although at least one of the women settled a lawsuit against him that the insurance company had to pay out.

Bottom line is we need to keep our doctors in OUR COMMUNITY!

Where are the board of directors, what are they doing? I was informed, if I mail anything to the Lordsburg address, chances are high that they will not receive any letters that indicate anything against the current CEO and or HMS. I have tried looking for mailing addresses and what I found was one of them has a mailing address in Oregon, so are they even doing their jobs as board members?

Whistle Blower
Grant County