A Tale of Two Hospitals Gerald Champion and Roosevelt General

A tale of two hospitals: Roosevelt General is a story of layoffs and cutbacks, Alamogordo’s Gerald Champion Hospital is a tale of a merger and investment to ensure a stable future. Christus commits millions to Alamogordo health care while Roosevelt General lays off staff.

Leaders and board members of Roosevelt General Hospital held a briefing to discuss the financial future of the hospital.

RGH was recently forced to cut back on staff hours and terminate some employees due to budget cutbacks. Chief Executive Officer Kaye Green said that the May cutbacks effected everyone at the hospital, even those in leadership positions.

Green explained that hospitals have been unable to rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic. They cannot raise product prices to offset cost increases, and as such, hospital expenses far exceed revenue in the post-Covid rural Southwest.

RGH is one of eleven hospitals in the New Mexico Rural Hospital Network. Within this group of rural hospitals, one is set to close by December, one is converting to a Rural Emergency Hospital, and another is closing its labor and delivery unit.

Roosevelt General is one of two hospitals in the group implementing reductions in staffing.

Meanwhile, Alamogordo’s medical community leadership has worked to ensure a stable medical care facility for Otero County in partnering with Christus Healthcare.

Christus is viewed as controversial by some due to the requirements that Catholic hospitals are bound by a series of Ethical and Religious Directives. These directives prohibit a wide range of reproductive health services – such as abortion and contraception – and limit some end-of-life care.

These directives are often referred to as “guidelines,” not hard and fast rules. Depending on the diocese, means that hospitals can have leeway around the directives, according to a ProPublica article.

In the June 7 meeting, Heckert said the merger would bring more than a $100 million investment to Gerald Champion over the next 10 years and would add specialized services.

He told commissioners the hospital’s expensive medical machinery, constant struggles with supply chains and health care worker shortages would be alleviated by merging with a large hospital.

Gerald Champion CEO Jim Heckert with Christus Health CEO Ernie Sadau at the merger signing ceremony announced that Christus Health will fund a new local foundation with a $240 million donation.

While some people are alarmed and fearful of the recent merger, it appears at least for now that the merger had the potential for a large capital injection into Alamogordo’s health care system to shore up stability and mitigate risks to most services.

Whereas in the Rural Hospital Network to include Roosevelt General Hospital, their CEO stated that she does not know yet if another round of employee cuts will be necessary after this current (August) one. “We’ve got to reconcile all of our cost-cutting actions with everything that we know,” she said. “Once we get to that, we’ll know what our supportable employment level is and whether it can be sustained at current levels or if another round of cuts is going to be necessary”

Time will tell if the Christus merger with Gerald Champion Hospital was a good decision, or nor. At least the dialogue and discussion in Alamogordo locally is about quality of care, and investment, versus the Roosevelt General dialogue, of layoffs and cuts to services.

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