Hospital CEO reviews progress under Commission ‘DRASTIC IMPROVEMENT’ IN FISCAL STATE OF RMCHCS
By Cody Begaye Sun Correspondent
D
avid Conejo, CEO of Rehoboth McKinley Ch r i st i a n Hea lt h Care Services, was present at the McKinley County Board of Commissioners regular meeting Dec. 18 to discuss the progress RMCHCS has made in the past four years. “We are very much in debt
to [the Commission],” Conejo said during the meeting. During those four years, Conejo said the hospital initiated a substance-abuse program, with improvements to the rehab ser vices and upgrades to the facility’s labs. Conejo said the cost of the facility’s renovation, which has been paid, was $1.5 million. I n add ition, a not her $500,000 was spent to repair
part of the roof of the facility, allowing RMCHCS to become the first rural hospital in New Mexico to receive a helipad. Other upgrades to the hospital included X-ray equipment and around 400 computers, which cost about $600,000, Conejo said. In all, Conejo said the amount spent on improvements to the facility have increased in the past four years: $1.2 million
RMCHCS CEO David Conejo, left, presents updates about the facility during the Dec. 18 regular County Commission meeting. Photo Credit: Cody Begaye
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Friday December 21, 2018 • Gallup Sun
in 2014; $1.1 million in 2015; $1.94 million in 2016; $2.7 million in 2017; with the total cost for improvements to RMCHCS from 2014 to 2018 tallying up to about $7.5 million. Conejo said on a given day in 2014, RMCHCS had around two days of cash on hand — that amount increased to nearly 42 days of cash on hand in 2018. The total operating costs of the facility during seven days is about $400,000, he said. At one point in 2014, the amount of short-term debt the facility carried was about $7 million. In 2018, that number decreased to $2.2 million. Likewise, additional debts
for RMCHCS have decreased from $19 million in 2014 to about $4.7 million in 2018, Conejo said. The upward trend in revenue means the facility will begin to increase employee salaries in January 2019, and
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HOSPITAL CEO | SEE PAGE 17
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