Guam Memorial Hospital leadership are still sore over the health oversight hearing with senators. 

“So when they tell us that we’re incompetent, that means they want us to make chicken soup out of chicken crap,” said Board member Dr. Teresa Borja. 

Leadership at the GMH aired their frustrations with senators during a board of directors meeting Wednesday night.

This comes on the heels of a heated oversight hearing where they were grilled over hospital shortfalls and controversies for four hours. 

“We start out of a deficit every year and they have the nerve to tell us how incompetent we are. So I would like to see about factoring in the self pay amounts into this full budget request. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot….The public hospital is mandated to take in everyone regardless of their ability to pay, leaving them in the red every year,” said Borja. 

Borja and others want to ask senators for more money in their upcoming budget request. 

“Give us a break. Give us $50 million as part of the $200 million accounts receivable for the self pay accounts. These are not self pay accounts. These are unable to pay accounts. And I don’t blame them. Maybe they’re poor, but we’re still going to take care of them so we need that funding. If the federal government is not going to give it to us, we need to figure out how we can get more funding,” added Borja. 

Last year, GMH only got less than half of their budget request.

Borja didn’t hold back. 

“And the legislature said, ‘ask for more money. Are you sure this is all you want?’ Well when we ask for more money– I am not on my soap box, these are all facts– we asked for $74 million, they gave us $34 million and they said ‘we’re probably going to see you next year for the same problems.’ [It’s] because we are taking care of the outer islands, the tourists and anyone that needs help we are mandated by law to take care of them at GMH,” said Borja. 

The hospital’s Legal Counsel Attorney Robert Marc Weinberg is in agreement. 

“They think they are subsidizing us. No. They need to be funding us and they don’t want to use that word. I have an idea. Give us what we ask for and if there’s anything left over, we’ll put it in the fund and then we’ll ask for it to be appropriated every year back to us,” said Weinberg. 

Guam Memorial Hospital is requesting an additional $21.9 million to run the hospital for fiscal year 2026.