Lawmakers put the Guam Memorial Hospital Authority under the microscope today. Also during the oversight hearing, the discussion centered on a critical audit from the Office of Public Accountability and other key issues. With GMH’s financial health and patient care on the line, officials faced tough questions on accountability and future reforms.

"This oversight hearing is not about numbers, it is about lives. The time for excuses is over. It is time for real change and it starts with management," stated chairperson of the Legislative Committee on Health, Senator Sabrina Salas Matanane, making a firm statement heading into the oversight hearing of GMH. Seated before lawmakers were GMHA officials and Public Auditor Benjamin Cruz from the OPA.

(Notably absent was GMHA hospital administrator and CEO Lillian Perez-Posadas, who suffered an injury. Speaking on her behalf was Dr. Kwasi Nyame, associate administrator of medical services and neurosurgeon.)

To start things off, Cruz presented part one of the GMHA audit on physicians pay. He said the audit was simple, despite being over 100 pages and full of a lot of numbers, it breaks down if GMHA complied with applicable Guam laws, rules and regulations in their hiring process of contracting physicians.

"Our findings is that GMHA physician hirings was not subject to the Guam procurement laws, however according to GMHA, it is governed by its own related regulations," he said. "Two, we found the lack of general or specific internal policy to govern the contracting, hiring, and documentation processes of physicians."

GMHA addressed some of 'issues and deficiencies' they found with the audit. Rodalyn Gerardo is the assistant administrator of operations, and said, "You'll see vendor 203 and 265 you'll see right across data from 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. However when they combined it you'll see their FY '22 and '23 shows zero."

Gerado concluding her portion of the presentation with GMH's issue with the type of evidence the audit used. "They didn'

 

t go to GMH. They didn't physically observe or inspect. Part of the auditor's role when you conduct field work, you would go to the entity and interview people, and so on. So it kind of begs the question how did they come to certain conclusions?: she said.

Chiming in was GMHA legal counsel Jordan Pauluhn on one of the polices the OPA cited relative to personnel administrator contract processes. "We have a separate medical staff office that handles our physician recruitment, hiring, peer review - the whole gambit of physician support," said the counsel. "So what the OPA missed on relying on the contract for human resources is that applies to the rest of the hospital. But physicians have been largely governed as unclassified appointments and we've used a historical hiring practice for them. It was cited in the final draft report without coming and speaking with the medical staff office. That actually deals with these issues. There was a lot that was just missed with just making assumptions."

GMHA chief financial officer Yuka Hechanova says they did invite the OPA numerous times to gain a better understanding of policies. "Here's a doctor, how do you get him on a contract? How do you find the doctor? How do you onboard him? All these questions you can ask directly with people who are responsible for this process," she said.

"We don't have anything to hide. If they had talked to us I think we would have had a really constructive audit."

The oversight hearing was three minutes shy of four hours.