Time for accountability over indigent care

Every resident has a need to access health care, regardless of income, regardless of color, being brown, black, white, regardless of insurance, etc.

I am reflecting on the past few years of advocating for Doña Ana County residents that have needed to access health care at Memorial Medical Center, especially cancer treatment.

These issues are multidimensional, complex and convoluted. It will take a multipronged approach to address and take corrective action. I am grateful that an op-ed I wrote for the Albuquerque Journal got the attention of NBC reporter Gretchen Morgenson. I am grateful for Gretchen’s reporting, which caused the movement we needed. There has been much media attention since, both national and local, exposing issues I’ve been calling out since 2021.

Recently I attempted to find out if Memorial Medical Center provided a response by its Sept. 30 deadline to the city’s notice of breach, pertaining to terms of the hospital’s lease of public land. Among the city’s demands was for Memorial to “provide all reports setting forth the costs of expanded care services provided between 2018 and 2024.”

I submitted record requests to both the city and Doña Ana County requesting Memorial’s expanded care services reports – required under the lease – in June 2022 and September 2024. Both agencies said there were no responsive documents. So I questioned: Did Memorial Medical Center already violate the lease?

Fast forward to the June 11, 2024 Doña  Ana County Board of County Commissioners’ meeting when Laura Thomas, CFO of Memorial Medical Center, told commissioners,  "My understanding is that in 2016 – I wasn't here – there was a decision made to remove the cancer indigent care out of the lease agreement. And so that was removed out.”  

Prior to that meeting, I had made public record requests from Doña Ana County. These included the 2015 and 2016 Memorial Medical Center County Healthcare Assistance Program policies, which included Memorial’s policy name change from Expanded Care Services/Community Benefit Program Policy to CHAP. Outpatient oncology and chemo services and outpatient dialysis were excluded under CHAP.

This showed me why I witnessed residents having issues accessing cancer treatment. Memorial Medical Center removed cancer from their policy. I question whether this was legal to do in the first place.  Did it violate the lease, since cancer was specifically included in the lease’s 2004 policy?

The Indigent Hospital and County Health Care Act states: “A qualifying hospital shall accept every indigent patient who seeks health care services from the qualifying hospital.” It also says,  “a qualifying hospital shall annually report to the county within which it is located the total costs of health care services provided in the previous calendar year.” I requested these reports from our county, but Doña Ana County didn’t have reports related to this statute since 2013.

Who knew about these changes in 2015 of 2016, was it disclosed in public meetings with public input, and was there oversight as to whether the policy change violated the lease?

It is past time to shine a light on these decisions, at Memorial Medical Center, the county and city.