In the wake of a damning federal report on GMH, confidence in the island’s only public hospital could be hitting an all-time low.

You’ve all heard the jokes over the years – GMH stands for “Get Me to Hawaii” – those jokes made decades ago, and here in 2018, it’s still the same old story with the Guam Memorial Hospital.

The federal report stating GMH has failed to create accountability for medical errors to protect patient care. While a parade of doctors are coming out of the woodwork to make allegations of mismanagement and corruption at GMH, the federal report says not a single adverse patient report has been filed in over a year.

This man sharing a sentiment some people have not just about the quality of care at GMH, but the quality of doctors at the Tamuning hospital.

“They’re rejects,” he said. “The doctors here on Guam are rejects from the states – because if they were good doctors, they’d be making more money on their own land.”

At risk if GMH doesn’t satisfy the feds on correcting 80 pages of deficiencies in the report – up to $15 million in Medicare matching funds – that would leave manamko’ without insurance out in the cold.

“That’s going to be hard on those who are like me, those who rely so much on Medicare,” he said.

Linda Perez, a respiratory therapist at GMH, said the hospital and GovGuam need to get focused and tackle the Medicare violations cited in the Center for Medicare report.

“We need to do whatever it takes to meet the requirements of CMS,” Perez said. “Because our patients deserve it.”

We asked Perez if there was any truth to allegations made by doctors about GMH’s lack of leadership.

“If you lead by example, by showing that you do care, that you’re in support of the team, that you’ll do anything to help the team – that’s leadership,” Perez said.

Do you think GMH leadership is doing those things right now?

“There are areas that are obvious – that need help, that leadership needs to not just look at what what’s good for them – but what’s good for the hospital as a whole,” Perez said.

Perez said GMH is also suffering from a steady stream of negative publicity.

“There are a lot of positive things about GMH and unfortunately people haven’t seen that – or if they have, they haven’t really talked about it,” Perez said.

While Perez and other GMH employees may feel like they’re being thrown under the bus by GMH leadership and the federal report, this man told KUAM News perception is reality.

“There’s no improvement, in fact, services are going down,” he said.