Oversight chair requests more details on new hospital plans and costs

Looking ahead: where, when, and how much will a new hospital cost? And right now, what’s being done to keep the island’s only public hospital safe? These are the pressing questions the new health oversight committee chair hopes to address ahead of next week’s informational briefing.

Earlier this month, Senator Sabrina Salas Matanane gave a strong assessment of the Guam Memorial Hospital, grading its condition with an "F". GMH staff voiced their concerns about the island’s only public hospital directly to the committee chair, sounding alarms about its vulnerabilities, with the freshman policymaker saying, “They’ve relayed to me and other committee members that they’re not even sure that it’s going to even withstand another typhoon.”

And with Governor Lou Leon Guerrero advocating for a new hospital in Mangilao, the senator says she supports building a new facility - although her stance on its location has yet to be determined. 

“I would rather wait and see what happens with the lawsuit," she noted.

As the legal battles unfold, Matanane is calling for clarity through an informational briefing, hoping to shed light on the status of plans for the new hospital and its projected costs. “I feel like there’s so much discussion about the new hospital–there’s a lot of controversy, people are wanting to know how much it's going to cost, on social media and even messages I get asking me is it going to be $2 billion? At this point, I’m not 100% sure because the documents that I received from GMH it listed the new hospital costs right now at a little bit over $1 billion," she told KUAM News.

To uncover these answers, she’s engaging stakeholders, including the Governor’s Office, the Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority, the Guam Economic Development Authority, the Department of Administration, and the Bureau of Budget & Management Research. According to Senator Matanane, Adelup has confirmed they will present the latest details.

In the meantime, her immediate focus is ensuring the existing hospital is safe for both patients and staff, which includes scrutinizing the progress of GMH’s critical infrastructure projects and accounting for $20 million in American Rescue Plan funds.

“They only received $10 million out of the $20 million," she added. "$10 million that they did receive it went to pay vendors - not necessarily on the CIP they listed and provided myself and other senators during a tour about a month ago." She added, "When they appear next week, they are expected to give an update on what we’re going to do. Has anything been completed? Which particular projects did you sign contracts for?”

The informational briefing is scheduled for Tuesday, February 4 at 10am at the Guam Congress Building.