by Krystal Paco

Guam - The Guam Memorial Hospital expects to be in full compliance with federal Life Safety Code requirements by this Saturday's deadline. Interim hospital administrator Rey Vega says GMH staffers have been addressing citations that were issued by both the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare, as well as the Joint Commission on Accreditation.

The CMS visited the hospital back in May and threatened to pull federal funding, but granted a temporary waiver to address the deficiencies. "We had the doors replaced and installed those that were cited by CMS late last week, so we're just wrapping up all the life safety code violations and we will surely meet the December 30 deadline," said Vega.

Vega says the hospital also made improvements to other Life Safety Code violations and upgrade the fire sprinkler system and access control systems. The hospital expects CMS to do a survey sometime early next month, as well as an inspection by JCO that recently changed GMH's 'Full Accreditation' status to 'Accreditation with Follow-Up Inspection'.