[Editor's Note: This article is the sixth of a series of articles on the Grant County Commission work session on June 6, 2023 and the regular meeting on June 8, 2023. This article begins with a second presentation and the continuing review of the regular meeting agenda and decisions made.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

The second presentation at the Grant County Commission regular meeting on June 8, 2023, featured Gila Regional Medical Center Interim Chief Executive Officer Margie Molitor. She said her No. 1 job is onboarding the new Board of Trustees, who will begin their terms on July 1, 2023. "I had an informal meeting with them the other evening, and another meeting tonight for them to meet leadership. Six of the seven will attend the New Mexico Hospital Association board education event on June 21 and 22. We will hold two orientations for them in July."

She said the hospital had completed its first month of rounding with directors visiting with their staff members. "One told me she didn't know that she would benefit from it, until she sat down with some of them and listened to them and thought: 'Wow, this is a good thing.' We'll continue to refine the process, but we've had some really good feedback from the first month. We are continuing to work on becoming a certified chest pain center through the American College of Cardiology. Our steam sterilization tank has been replaced, and we're back to full sterilizations. I thank the team for what they and sister hospitals did to keep things functioning."

"I got a call from Priscilla (Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments executive director)," Molitor said. "She, as you know, is an awesome resource for Grant County. She made a call and confirmed we have permission to go ahead with our OR (operating room) HVAC replacement that will be paid for through a federal grant. Kudos to Priscilla. We weren't getting anywhere; she made a call, and we're good to go. Our architect continues to work with the Department of Health to get final approval for our maternal-child expansion to expand the labor and delivery rooms and move them into the same space as our post-partum rooms and nursery. We need to get moving on that. It is state money, and it will not disappear at the end of June, but we need to get it spent."

To a question from District 5 Commissioner Harry Browne about the room sizes, Molitor said they had taken the showers out of the post-partum rooms, because the mothers would almost immediately move into their rooms which will have full bathrooms. "We will need an exception, but we hope the Department of Health will realize that we have made the rooms larger. Yes, since I've been here, our plans were rejected, then with a change it was declined, but the architects have continued to work with the Department of Health and it is moving. Meditech Expanse work continues. There are a lot of moving pieces, but we have a designated staff doing a great job. The system will require a lot of testing. The staff is making sure each piece is tested, so we're ready to go live in November. We have the term sheet with Dr. Arsenal to work as a radiation oncologist starting in September, when Dr. Hayostek retires. We are working on finalizing the contract. I'm pushing relationships with our fellow health care partners, clinics such as HMS (Hidalgo Medical Services), Silver Health Care and home cares. We received some information from the Department of Health. We reached out to the other centers to make sure they were receiving the same information, and I don't think they were. We're making sure to keep the communication paths open, so we can be good community partners. We are preparing a proposal to compensate Silver City Fire when they assist us with transferring patients. I will bring that to you later this month. On our April finances, volume was steady and due to the great work of our GRMC team and our sister hospitals, our OR volumes were not impacted by the steam tank replacement. We had 113 days of cash on hand, up from 109. In perspective, three years ago, we were at 9 days of cash, which was critical. We are working toward 180 days of cash. It's a marathon, not a sprint. We still have a $1.3 million loss back to last July, but we're plugging away at that. We hope we can continue to chip away at that in May and June, so we have a much better looking financial statement at the end of the fiscal year."

County Manager Charlene Webb, at the work session, noted the next item on the agenda was the financial report, which Financial Officer Linda Vasquez presented at the work session. The report ending June 1, 2023, showed county expenditures at a total of $3,559,359.87, which included two pay periods for a payroll of $462,081.05. Extraordinary expenses of more than $10,000 are listed in the PDF below:

The next article will get into elected offical reports and new business.

To visit the previous articles, go to https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/78763-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-060623-part-1; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/78798-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-060623-part-2 ; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/78852-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-060623-part-3 ; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/78852-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-060623-part-4 ; and https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/78935-grant-county-commission-060623-work-session-and-regular-meeting-060823-part-5 .