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Come next summer, it will be a little easier to find parking at Guam Memorial Hospital, with GMH launching a $815,000 expansion project that will bring 38 new parking stalls once completed. Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, at a project groundbreaking Wednesday, said leadership must continue supporting GMH so it can keep running for another five years while a replacement is built. Hospital leadership, the governor and hospital oversight chair Sen. Sabrina Salas Matanane turned the first shovels of dirt on the parking expansion in a ceremony hosted in front of GMH’s main entrance. Stalls will be extended into the large, grassy area outfitted with park benches and trees in the center of the congested GMH parking lot. On Wednesday, staff and visitors were seen leaving their vehicles, parked along the street in surrounding neighborhoods. Completion is scheduled for May 29, 2026. Green Community Development is the contractor. GMH Interim Administrator Dr. Joleen Aguon said the issue of limited parking might seem small to some, in light of other challenges faced by the hospital. “But parking at GMH is critical,” Aguon said. “Individuals have missed vital medical appointments due to parking constraints, have chosen to forgo their medical care due to these parking issues...Despite these obstacles with parking, the stress it adds to our dedicated staff, they continue to show up daily.” The parking project exemplifies the commitment to addressing concerns about GMH, Aguon said. Salas Matanane said senators are committed to helping GMH get funding for capital improvement projects—the parking lot was one of them—and to pay for medicine and supplies. “Yes, we need a new hospital, but we also know that we must help the Guam Memorial Hospital now, because building a new facility will take years,” Salas Matanane said. The governor thanked hospital leadership for moving the expansion forward, saying in jest that she wanted the additional parking “10 years ago.” “Really, people get pissed off when they’re wanting to go see their patient, their loved ones, and they can’t find a parking space,” she said, adding the little improvement would raise the perception of GMH. Governor: Another 5 years “This is an old hospital, but we must continue to support it, to keep it running for at least five more years,” the governor said Wednesday. Almost two years ago to the date, in October 2023, she told GMH staff that the facility had possibly five years left. “When the Army Corps of Engineers came here in...2019, when I asked them, they told me five years,” she told the Pacific Daily News on Wednesday. She said the administration will continue supporting GMH projects to keep the hospital running for another five “because there’s no other option.” A planned 2024 groundbreaking on the new Mangilao hospital has come and gone, with the matter still deadlocked. Strategies weighed In 2023, Leon Guerrero urged lawmakers to allow a lease with the military for a new hospital at Eagle’s Field in Mangilao. That fell through. On Wednesday, she appealed again to senators present, Salas Matanane and Sen. Vince Borja, to pass her Bill 2 and allow water, power and sewer installations for a new hospital in Mangilao to move forward without a review by the attorney general. Attorney General Douglas Moylan has publicly vowed not to sign any utility contracts for what he’s called an illegal hospital project. Moylan is suing in the District Court to block $104 million in federal American Rescue Plan money earmarked for the project. Adelup is trying to get the case thrown out, asserting the project has followed all laws. Funds will expire if unspent by 2026. Leon Guerrero on Wednesday said there’s been no progress in working out a compromise over the hospital, and the funds. “There are some strategies we are looking at to get this contract going, but it hasn’t been finalized yet” she said. Leon Guerrero said with the matter now before the courts, she will ask the courts to step in. Speaker Frank Blas Jr. has requested more documentation from Adelup on the justification of the ARP funds used for the hospital, before moving forward any compromise. Utilities oversight chair Sen. Jesse Lujan and the AG have all called for Adelup to produce a letter of approval for the project from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The governor on Wednesday called it “delay tactics.” “If you just go to the guidelines for the use of the ARP...you will see that the hospital is eligible,” she said. The Treasury did not approve any individual project for any state or territory, she said, and the speaker himself had tried to contact the Treasury on the issue.
