SILVER CITY, NM - Grant County Commissioners spent about 5 hours behind closed doors in executive session Friday to discuss the idea of taking over control of the Gila Regional Medical Center from what remains of the hospital’s board of trustees.
The motion by commissioner Chris Ponce died as it was not seconded. Commissioners tabled a motion to appoint new trustees to the hospital board, but they did agree to allow a firm to hire a new interim CEO to replace Richard Stokes, who has been serving as both CEO and CFO for the hospital. Commissioners said he needs help.
District 5 Commissioner Harry Brown said, “I think all of us feel it’s incredibly important to provide some management assistance to the hospital at this time and it needs to be done immediately. Mr. Richard Stokes has been doing double duty as both CEO and CFO and that’s just not tenable for anybody. It’s too much work and we need to get him some help and my support for this is precisely that. It’s to bring help to the hospital. This is a very difficult time for our hospital and to leave it all to one person is not possible so that’s why I would be voting for this.”
The hospital’s previous CEO, Taffy Arias, departed in February for unknown reasons after less than a year on the job.
An interim CEO, G. Scott Manis of Dallas, will take over the job on Monday.
Here is a statement from Grant County:
Grant County’s Board of Commissioners today rejected a resolution that would have revoked the governing authority of the Board of Trustees of Gila Regional Medical Center (GRMC).
This leaves the Board of Trustees nominally in charge of the county-owned hospital. However, after the resignation of four of the hospital Board’s seven trustees, the Board no longer has a quorum of members to make decisions on behalf of the hospital. “We met with the remaining three trustees today to discuss a wide range of options,” said Commission Chairman Chris Ponce after the meeting. “We are incredibly grateful for their continued commitment to helping GRMC remain as this community’s bedrock provider of healthcare.”
“The remaining Trustees and we Commissioners agreed that it is vitally important to bring additional management resources to our hospital as soon as possible,” Ponce said. “Mr. Richard Stokes is having to perform double-duty as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and that is asking too much even of someone as highly competent as Richard.”
“We have therefore contracted with a national firm specializing in rural hospital management to supply us with an interim Chief Executive Officer,” Ponce said, and we will be working closely with the three remaining trustees to establish a new, collaborative relationship that will move us forward towards three goals: 1) contracting with HealthTechS3 to provide management services; 2) filling vacancies on the Board of Trustees; and 3) and returning the hospital to financial health.”
The national firm the Commission has turned to is HealthTechS3, an award-winning healthcare consulting and hospital management firm headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee. HealthTechS3 provides a full scope of financial and operational services, with a special focus on rural, sole community, and governmental hospitals with their associated clinics, providers and community services.
HealthTechS3 recruited G. Scott Manis of Dallas to serve as interim chief executive officer, effective Monday, May 4, 2020. Scott is an accomplished senior healthcare executive with more than a 25-year history of raising the bar on financial and operational performance for healthcare providers. He is a turnaround specialist known for developing strategic plans and implementing tactical solutions to revitalize struggling enterprises.
During his career, Scott has been the chief executive for several organizations, including hospitals, a retirement center, and other enterprises; as well as numerous other senior-level operational and strategic relationship/business development roles. He has been an interim chief executive officer for HealthTechS3 previously and is excited to assist GRMC during this transition period.
“Scott served for many years as a CEO in organizations of various types and sizes,” commented Neil Todhunter, president of HealthTechS3. “His experience combined with the depth of his industry relationships and how he approaches the needs of the hospital make him the perfect fit for this role.” Todhunter continued, “GRMC has encountered very difficult times recently, not even counting the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to working with the staff, physicians, commissioners, and the community to help GRMC become the strong hospital it needs to be for the region it serves.”
Scott holds a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Texas-San Antonio.
He is succeeding Richard Stokes, GRMC’s chief financial officer, who has served recently as interim chief executive officer following the resignation in February of Taffy Arias. Richard will resume his duties as GRMC’s chief financial officer.
“Our main goal is to stabilize the finances at Gila Regional Medical Center so they can continue to serve not only Grant County, but the surrounding counties. We understand how vital Gila Regional Medical Center is to our community”, Ponce said.