Modern trauma hospital needed
It bears repeating that the 340-square-foot operating rooms at the main University of New Mexico Hospital were built in 1954, decades before technology and protocols dictated they be 700 square feet.
It bears repeating because as the design phase for a modern surgical and adult-care hospital heads to the UNM Board Regents for consideration on Thursday, that’s just the next stop.
Assuming the regents approve plans to launch initial design work, the final project and construction will need approval by the Health Sciences Board, the regents, the state’s Higher Education Department and the state Board of Finance.
It also bears repeating because the current hospital makes providing the optimum in complicated emergent care challenging at best and impossible at worst.
UNMH’s doctors, nurses and professional staff perform about 19,000 surgeries a year in a building designed to handle just 1,000 to 2,000. In the past year they have treated nearly 6,000 patients from around the state but have turned away 800 because the hospital’s 308 adult beds were full.
It is indeed important that the project be vetted and debated at every step. It is, after all, a huge investment of taxpayer resources. The price tag for the project — which includes 360 adult acute care beds, a new psychiatric unit and a medical office building — is now around $600 million.
UNMH plans to use its significant cash reserves of $250 million and issue $350 million in bonds it will pay off with hospital revenues. Officials are not seeking any new revenue from the county or state.
The next step, which is on the regents’ agenda Thursday, would be to get an actual design/location/cost plan in place so an informed debate can take place. An earlier proposal for 96 adult beds met with resistance at the final Board of Finance stage because of unanswered questions about where the project fit in the health care picture. And there are still legitimate questions to be asked and answered.
But the people of New Mexico depend on the state’s only Level One trauma center to be there when they need it. And we all want the best possible care when facing serious injury or illness. The current facility isn’t up to that task.
So it’s time for detailed planning to begin in earnest so the issues can be resolved and UNMH can move ahead sooner rather than later in a state-of-the-art health care facility to serve New Mexicans.