Guam Memorial Hospital could shut down in six months if electrical panel is not promptly replaced
- Admin
- Sep 26
- 4 min read
By Jayvee Vallejera
If the aging electrical panel at the Guam Memorial Hospital fails, the facility’s only possible alternative is to evacuate the hospital.
That drew a second of stunned silence at Thursday morning’s joint oversight hearing at the Guam legislature, during which it was also learned that replacing the decrepit panel was not simply a matter of switching one out with a brand-new panel.
Just mending what needs to be fixed to prevent a catastrophic failure will take about six months. Installing a new electrical panel is estimated to take several months and even up to a year, GMH officials said.
The joint oversight hearing was held by the 38th Guam Legislature’s Committee on Health and Veterans Affairs and Committee on Finance and Government Operations, which Sen. Sabrina Salas Matanane presided over.
Held at GMH, Guam lawmakers heard from hospital leaders about vendor payments, the status of the hospital’s electrical panel and funding conditions, with a focus on the status of the $40 million the legislature appropriated for GMH in a special session two weeks ago.
When asked if GMH has an alternative plan if its old electrical panel fails today, Zaldy Tugade, GMH’s associate administrator of operations, said, “I think the only perceivable alternative is to evacuate the hospital.”
GMH, however, has nowhere to evacuate its patients to other than its alternate care facility, the Skilled Nursing Facility.
GMH administrator Lillian Posadas said she had previously raised this issue. “Really, we have no place to evacuate the patients other than the SNF, which has been recognized and designated as our alternate care facility, but it's also limited.”
That only means getting the hospital’s electrical panel fixed and replaced is of the utmost importance, said Sen. Jesse A. Lujan.
“Absolutely,” said Posadas.
She said they’ve been wanting to get the electrical panel fixed, but it takes time and money. “You can't just switch off this electrical panel that we have without having the new one in place.”
The hospital’s electrical panel is years beyond its usable life and can't be upgraded. So far, it has not collapsed yet, but it’s been blamed for a couple of fires that caused some patients to evacuate.
When pressed for a timeline on a quick fix, Tugade said he thinks it could be done within at least six months, which he describes as “very aggressive.”
He agrees that the most important thing right now is to get the panel fixed, but it will require parts that have long lead times.
“It doesn't come off the shelf. We need to make the orders, specify it, and we need our A&E to confirm all this,” he added.
Lujan finds that concerning. Between now and six months to get it repaired, the hospital’s system is still very fragile, and it could blow up again.
“Within those six months, we could see the hospital shutting down completely, right?” he asked.
“Yes, that's a possibility,” replied Tugade.
At this point though, Guam’s only public hospital doesn’t have any place to go should it shut down. Lujan said this puts Guam in a “sad shape” if that were to happen between now and six months, which could happen according to Tugade’s testimony.
Tugade said that GMH has had an MOU with GPA since 2019 for the power company to help the hospital with preventive maintenance on the electrical panel until it could be replaced.
It’s not just about replacing the decrepit panel.
Dr. Ricardo Eusebio, chief medical officer of GMH, said the hospital’s many systems always need to have backups. GMH’s electrical panel doesn’t have one, so if it breaks down, the hospital won’t have emergency power.
“The electrical panel switches have no backup so that if something happens, the whole thing is shut down,” Eusebio said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had previously identified this as a massive weakness of GMH and recommended a backup system.
Tugade said the problem with GMH’s electrical panel has been known since 2019.
Sen. Tony Ada also appeared frustrated at the processes that GMH has to go through just to get the quick fix started.
“We're looking over a month again to get things together,” he said.
Duenas said the money to put the quick fixes in place is already there, and he urged GMH to find ways to shorten the process.
“The money is there. It's going to happen,” he added.
Duenas held Tugade to his promise of a quick fix for the electrical panel within six months. Now that the money is there to put the quick fix in place, how soon will it happen? he asked. “Can you accelerate that quick fix? And will that quick fix stabilize the hospital?”
“We will do our best. Whatever comes our way, if there are any difficulties, we'll let you know,” Tugade said.
Duenas said Tugade doesn't have a finance problem, but an execution problem.
He said the Legislature will look for the additional funding needed for the redundant electrical panel to be installed so the hospital can finally have a backup plan: a main panel and a backup panel.
Posadas said the $40 million that was appropriated to GMH two weeks ago has already started flowing in—not the entire $40 million but in tranches. GMH got the first tranche, $1.3 million, last Friday, which was used to pay for the hospital’s doctors.
Yuka Hechanova, GMH’s chief financial officer, said the next tranche will amount to about $14.3 million and will be used to pay for the GMH employees’ health insurance premiums and withholding taxes and to pay the Guam Power Authority. “
On Sept. 30, GMH will receive $10 million that will be used for vendor payments. “As soon as the money hits the account, we'll be able to cut the checks and release them right away,” she added.
Another $7.5 million will be released to GMH on Oct. 15. The remaining amount, about $6.8 million, will be released on Oct. 30.
She said they will reserve $10 million of that for the electrical panel fixes and to upgrade their computer systems.
Hachenova said she and Department of Administration Director Edward Burn agreed to this schedule.
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