Critical deadline: GMH electrical system is only the beginning of the emergency

Yo Amti By Vincent Akimoto

There must be something terrible, some horrible monster that exists in the dark grotto of Guam Memorial Hospital's electrical room.

This monster must live in the minds of GMH leadership prowling directly below the second-floor obstetrics ward and surgical operating rooms with all its labouring women and hissing anaesthesia gases.

Terrifying proud political sycophants into stupefaction, the sinister GMH electrical panel is a large throbbing monstrous mass of galvanized steel and a gnarly, twisted spaghetti of electric wires.

During the howling midnight winds of Supertyphoon Mawar, the dysfunctional electric panel monster awoke furiously, setting fire to the hospital cafeteria and terrorizing the poor nurses and sick patients who were sheltering at GMH during the storm.

Three weeks ago, the GMH fire demon again returned, this time setting the pediatric ward on fire. Amid the flames and the smoke, deathly sick children and fragile newborn babies were forced to be evacuated from the fourth-floor pediatric ward. Talk about trauma. Talk about drama.

The electrical panel is the breaker point, where the energy generated by the Guam Power Authority flows into the hospital and is funnelled to every floor of the building to power the lights, the air conditioning, and all the critical medical equipment needed to keep patients alive.

The electrical panel is located on the ground floor at the back of the hospital, behind the boilers and water tanks. It's about 10 feet high and 30 feet long. In service for nearly 40 years, hospital officials say it's well past its prime and difficult to maintain and to find parts for repairs.

GMH has a backup generator sufficient to power the hospital's needs in the event of a GPA power outage, but it's of no use if the electrical panel fails.

That's because it makes no difference where the power comes from, whether it's from GPA or a generator. Without an operational electrical panel, the electricity can't be channelled to where it needs to go.

For years, safety officials have warned that GMH's decades-old electrical panel is a "single point of failure" for the entire facility. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has declared the electrical system as "dangerously decrepit" and a "threat to fatal failure." This isn't hyperbole – it's the assessment of experts.

In fiscal 2016, almost $50 million was borrowed from the bond market to subsidize GMH and to fix the electrical panel. The fix never happened. Over the past 10 years, GovGuam raised the business privilege tax and legalized gambling, promising to use the additional government funds to fix the GMH electrical panel. That fix was never done.

This past decade, Guam’s taxpayers gave more than $127 million in direct subsidies to rectify the multitude of problems at GMH, including the life-threatening broken-down electrical panel. The electrical panel problems were never rectified.

Over the past couple of years, GovGuam pay raises were generously given out. Special project coordinators were made even more special with fabulous cash bonuses. Plenty of 24-hour GovGuam vehicles, pickup trucks and golf carts were purchased. The prospect of a total power failure at the hospital wasn't given as much priority and a new GMH electrical panel was never purchased.

Something sinister is preventing GMH from doing the right thing. Something monstrous is stopping the good, smart, well-paid GMH employees from fixing the electrical panel.

This is not a simple case of kicking the proverbial can down the road. This is not common GovGuam deferred maintenance. No one denies the imminent fire danger at GMH and the implicit threat of the hospital exploding with hundreds of innocent lives made dead by reckless GovGuam negligence.

There have been four documented hospital fires at GMH in the past three years. There has been a recent chaotic, bloodcurdling mass evacuation of the pediatric ward due to a hospital fire. There is no one on Earth who cannot see the clear and present danger that GMH is in.

So, there must be hell-borne demons at work in GMH. Only demonic possession can explain the evil manifested in this GovGuam tragedy of administrative misadventures. Only evil demons would put the pay raises of nonessential government employees as a priority ahead of the purchase of a critical electrical panel.

The demons may take the form of Political Patronage, Tribal Loyalty, Meth Addiction, or Selfish Indulgence. Whatever shape these demons may take, they have corrupted the GMH leadership and led us to this inflection point in Guam history.

Or maybe, the curious saga of the unfixed GMH electrical panel is a toxic tale of environmental contamination. With no definitive explanation from GMH leadership, we are left to ponder the possible reasons why the GMH electrical panel has not yet been fixed after so many years.

Local building experts have surmised that the GMH electrical panel may be trapped in a poisonous environment surrounded by decaying and friable asbestos and insulating fiberglass. Certainly, the electrical panel’s proximity to the hospital water system is a source of great concern.

The unwillingness of GMH leadership to definitively resolve the threat of the pyrogenic Electrical panel is indeed perplexing and infuriating. Luckily, the Guam legislature has agreed to allow Lillian Posadas and Ed Birn to spend $40 million in GovGuam money that they already had.

Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, GMH leadership and Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero always had the money and the Organic Act mandate to fix the GMH electrical panel.

All GMH needs to do is click its ruby red slippers and say, “There’s no place like home”--especially a home and a hospital that doesn’t burst into flames whenever GPA has a power fluctuation.

  Dr. Vincent Akimoto practices Family Medicine at the American Medical Clinic. Send feedback to akimotovince@yahoo.com.

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