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After more than a year of discussion, UNM Hospital has yet to settle on a solution to its high occupancy rate.
William Sparks, executive director for communication and marketing at UNM Health Sciences Center, said UNM officials began to focus on the issue late in 2011. He said the debate began because the occupancy rate at UNMH exceeds typical levels.
“The Regents, at that point, began considering what we’re going to do with our strategic plan and how we’re going to deal with the increasing demand on our facilities,” he said. “Most hospitals are recommended to have about a 75 percent usage issue, and we’re consistently over 90, and many, many times over 95 percent occupied.”
Sparks also said it’s important for UNMH to have a “surge capacity” in case anything dire happens and the hospital suddenly needed to support a large number of people.
“We’ve seen, just in the last year, several incidents where local facilities were stretched because of mass situations,” he said. “It could be flooding, it could be a violence situation, it could be an epidemic of some type. For a public hospital, you really need to have that surge capacity.”
According to the Albuquerque Journal, a proposal to construct a new 96-bed hospital section to “alleviate overcrowding at UNMH” had been delayed by the New Mexico Board of Finance in October of last year due to a lack of information. UNMH said it had “cash reserves to fund the hospital,” which would cost $146 million, according to the article.
Sparks said UNMH has worked on answering questions posed by the Board of Finance and has discussed what other options are available to the hospital.
Sparks said various UNM officials have approved the plan and that UNMH is still waiting on a decision from the board.
“We set out a plan, the Regents approved that plan, the higher education department of the state of New Mexico approved it in July of last year and the state board of finance still needs to give their approval,” he said, “But we’re still in the discussion stages at this time. There really haven’t been any new developments in the past two months.”
Sparks said it is unknown when officials will decide how to solve the occupancy problem.
“We’re in ongoing discussions with all the different parties involved, with ourselves, with the providers, with other officials,” he said.
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There is a consensus that the hospital needs to “increase capacity,” Sparks said. He said the discussion now is how to go about solving the problem over the next decade.
Presilla Gonzalez, a sophomore majoring in communications, said expansion of the hospital would be nice, but thinks University funding could go to other things, too.
“If they need the space, that would be a good investment,” she said. “But I think it’s not fair because the Presbyterian Hospital — that’s not too far — is also the only hospital in the state that isn’t funded by the state or government. I think it should go toward them more because they’re doing more for the local community, but UNM is a big institution, and they can afford that.”
Dylan Gauntt, a program coordinator for the English department, said he thinks the hospital needs to expand, but doesn’t know how it will be financed.
“We definitely need more beds so we can provide adequate care. It’s just hard to say where the money should go,” he said. “I don’t know where it would come from or where else it could go.”
