by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - Legislation aimed at helping the Guam Memorial Hospital hire more doctors was just introduced this week, and a handful of physicians paid a visit to lawmakers requesting urgent action. A group of doctors met with leaders at the Guam Legislature this morning hoping they may address urgent needs of the hospital.

"The hospital unfortunately at this point is in need of two very critical physician services," said GMH medical director Dr. Larry Lizama. The two positions are for a neonatologist who provides care for premature babies and a pathologist who oversees lab work and does evaluation of tissues. And after a year of recruiting and having since identified someone who would fit the hospital's needs, Lizama says GMH's legal counsel pointed out some challenges.

"There was an interpretation that the process of how these physicians are coming on board that may be a violation of government procurement," he shared.

Senator Brant McCreadie introduced Bill 45 on Monday that would allow GMH to procure professional medical services by industry standard. The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Rory Respicio. "We introduced a bill," McCreadie told KUAM News, "saying that we are going to amend the code and make it legal now for essential hospital employees to go through a hiring agency off-island so we can get the best doctors that money can buy for the island of Guam."

Current procurement law doesn't allow compensation for recruitment agencies or headhunters in contracting health care professionals. Bill 45 would exempt GMH solely for the procurement of certified, registered or licensed health care professionals or pharmacists at GMH. The bill caps how much they would pay the recruiting agency at 15% of the hired person's salary.

Lizama supports the intent of the bill but is open to changes and hopes to see more flexibility with recruiters who have established fees, saying, "But unfortunately the industry standard and for physician in recruitment this is how it's done in many hospitals and private institution this is a no-brainer, but for the hospital, that's where our challenge is."

The bill sits under Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz's Committee on General Government Operations, who says it's unfortunate that this concern wasn't brought forward earlier. "They've known that they needed this for the last three years, why did they just do it just last Friday, that was the reason I was upset with them; you know, these things take a while to move through the Legislature, they should have notified us that they had a problem last December, we could have addressed in a hearing in January or February," he said.

So what's next? Lizama says while he doesn't want the Legislature to act beyond what they're due diligence process needs to be, he's hoping to work something out with the recruiters. "I'm trying to figure out a creative way to get them here and deal with the recruiting payments later but I'm not sure whether the recruiters will accept that. I hope they don't pull back their applicants and say we violated our agreement and such we're subject to legal action," he said.

Dr. Lizama says the hospital published positions in journals and online advertisements, adding using recruitment agencies is the last resort. He adds GMH doesn't necessarily have neonatology specialists but current physicians provide the service. Cruz meanwhile says he will be scheduling a public hearing at the earliest possible date in the first week of March.

McCreadie says he, too, wants the bill to go through the process and looks forward to the public hearing.