U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small visits Roosevelt

PORTALES - Affording healthcare is one thing, accessing it another.

In a visit Wednesday to Roosevelt General Hospital, U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small emphasized the importance of both for constituents in the state's 2nd Congressional District, the largest geographical district in the country served by a Democrat.

Access to healthcare Torres Small said, was part of her path to election in 2018.

Referring services to larger hospitals out of town still happens, RGH staff agreed in a round table meeting Wednesday afternoon with Torres Small.

"Do you realize that every new citizen of Portales gets born in Clovis?" RGH CEO Kaye Green told the discussion's attendees. "And that kind of hurts my heart."

There was plenty of discussion material for those gathered - Torres Small, hospital department heads and one pre-teen admirer of the representative, also named Xochitl - and only an hour or two for the talk and brief facility tour.

Topics included waiving proximity requirements for critical access hospital eligibility, incentives for physicians in rural settings, lack of mental/behavior healthcare in eastern New Mexico and lower Medicare reimbursements for rural versus urban hospitals.

Green emphasized two points: The challenges in efficiency brought by excessive regulations and the supportive relationship between the hospital and the community it serves.

Green spoke to a time in the 1990s when RGH was closed, and "how the community rallied together and brought this hospital back." RGH's new ownership had "announced they would be closing ... and funneling patients to Clovis," and for the period following "the fire department essentially became a mobile ER."

That was almost 20 years ago, two decades since the community raised $750,000 and got additional money from the state's finance authority, creating a special hospital district run by a board of trustees.

The hospital's loan was paid off in July, Green said.

"To know that we've been there and done that and come back stronger than before..." Green reflected.

"I love the community atmosphere of small hospitals," said Brad Roberts, RGH's chief of clinic operations. "I like small healthcare, because we do big things."

Torres Small said she was "not in the Medicare-for-all camp" because she hasn't seen healthcare access sufficiently addressed in its proposals. One place where that can quickly become difficult for rural patients and healthcare providers is in the cost of an ambulance or medical air transport.

RGH pays its physicians in close to the 90th percentile relative to Albuquerque, said Green, and keeps them on average for several years longer than the three-year term of most rural physicians. They are still hoping for more specialists, she said, particularly in dermatology.

Torres Small's visit went quickly, as she was making stops on a work period "listening tour" of southeastern New Mexico.

"I have made it a priority to learn more about (communities') operations and the challenges that face the region myself," she said in a news release. "We must tackle the daily frustrations that local residents endure such as a lack of healthcare providers..."

In a parallel to the past community effort Green emphasized on Wednesday, Torres Small said that "rural issues have to be non-partisan" and that "we have to work together as a community ... an underserved community, which is all of New Mexico, basically."