An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but will a new medical school have the opposite effect?
At a legislative committee meeting Wednesday, state lawmakers from both parties voiced strong support for the University of New Mexico’s plans to build a bigger new UNM School of Medicine. Rep. Liz Thomson, D-Albuquerque, called it “a game changer” in ameliorating the state’s shortage of healthcare providers.
“You guys are so important to us, the state of New Mexico,” Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview, said at the Legislative Finance Committee meeting. “We need the medical facility. We need the practitioners. We need you guys to turn them out.”
At an expected cost of $636 million, UNM plans to replace Reginald Heber Fitz Hall — the building, constructed in 1967, that houses the medical school — with a new facility on the corner of Lomas and University boulevards in Albuquerque, near UNM’s main campus.
The university will spend the first $150 million on early site work — such as demolition, grading, structural framing and procuring long-lead mechanical equipment — as designs for the new building are finalized, Stewart Livsie, director of the UNM Health Sciences Center Capital Projects Office, told lawmakers.
Construction is expected to begin in earnest in February or March, he added.
The new facility is one piece of a statewide effort to increase the number of doctors in New Mexico, as patients and lawmakers alike bemoan the state’s shortage of providers. Legislators authorized funding for the facility earlier this year.
The infrastructure improvement will enable UNM to double its medical school enrollment — from about 100 to about 200 — while opening up more space to train physical therapists, occupational therapists, physician assistants and other health professionals, Dr. Michael Richards, executive vice president of the UNM Health Sciences Center, told the committee.
By the end of this year’s legislative session, the university was well on its way to covering the cost of a new medical school. UNM Health Sciences Center secured $150 million from the state’s general fund plus another $280 million in capital outlay. A $116 million higher education general obligation bond for the new medical school will go before the state’s voters in November.
UNM Health Sciences Center will chip in $60 million, too.
“With the support of the state, we actually have the funding in place for the majority of the project,” Richards said.
Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, the committee’s vice chair, said the project had better stick to that budget — even as costs rise amid war in Iran.
“We’ve given you a ton of money. You guys are going to have to have cost containment,” Muñoz said. “I don’t know if we’re going to be willing to — or I’m going to be willing to — look back and have spent $650 million, and now you say, ‘I need another $200 million.’ ”
Livsie said the health sciences center has simulated different cost scenarios, with estimates coming in within $5 million of each other — a comfortable margin of error for such a large expenditure.
“If you’re within $5 million on this project, I mean, I need to hire you guys,” Muñoz joked.