by Krystal Paco

Guam - The Guam Memorial Hospital took to the hot seat as lawmakers grilled management on its budget request during this morning's hearing. While several departments requested more than their current year budget, GMH's budget request of $93 million was a decrease from their current budget of $112 million.

Committee on Health chair Senator Dennis Rodriguez, Jr. raised concern over GMH's priorities, saying, "Healthcare is the one of the main priorities and it's not reflective in what we've seen this morning."

GMH acting CFO June Infante says it's a legitimate concern, saying, "Because suddenly when you bring it down you think that the services are going to be curtailed. No it's not, because our tracking for 2012 is that we'll spend 88 to 89 million dollars this is for this year."

Rodriguez says that however is status quo adding after a year of having oversight hearings and briefings relative to GMH's finances, none of what's been asked of GMH appeared to be taken into account, including resolving its billing and collections and collecting its outstanding accounts receivables.

He has since asked GMH to possibly change its priorities as he believes it appears to be lopsided.