Valencia County Hospital gets its name

Construction of a new hospital in Valencia County is progressing smoothly and the facility now has an official name — Valencia County Hospital: A Lovelace Operation.

At the March 19 Valencia County Commission meeting, the commissioners unanimously approved the name of the hospital.

County Manager Jhonathan Aragon said the survey put out to the community for name suggestions garnered “quite a few really good responses. We thought it was really important for the community to be part of the process.”

Valencia County Hospital is under construction at the northeast corner of Main Street and Sand Sage Road in the village of Los Lunas.

According to a summary of the survey results, of the 150 responses to whether they had a preference for the name including the word “hospital” or “medical center,” 65 chose medical center, while 57 chose hospital and 28 had no preference.

When asked to select among four draft names — Valencia County Medical Center, Manzano View Hospital, Valencia County Health Center or Rio Grande Valley Medical Center — 154 people weighed in, with the majority of them, 96 respondents, offering up their own suggestions.

Those suggestions included Rio Abajo Regional Hospital, Valencia County Hospital, Luna Medical Center, La Promesa Hospital, Roadrunner Health Center, Camino Real Hospital, Daniel Fernandez Medical Center, Dr. W.F. Wittwer Memorial Hospital, Luis Torres Medical Center, Dr. Roland Sanchez Medical Center and Huning Memorial Hospital.

Before the discussion of the name, the commission received a construction update, complete with a slide show showing renderings of interior rooms, and Commission Chairman Gerard Saiz noted the slides were labeled “Valencia County hospital.”

“I think that word is important. The mill levy was for a hospital. The (state) appropriation was for an acute care hospital,” Saiz said.

The chairman said it was also important to incorporate the provider in the name, which is Lovelace Health Systems, suggesting something like Valencia County Hospital: Operated by Lovelace. He noted if there was a different provider in the future, it would be easy to adjust the overall name.

County attorney Dave Pato said the county reached out to Lovelace, who indicated they would like to have their name featured prominently in the final moniker.

Commissioner Joseph Bizzell asked if by having “Valencia County” as part of the name would put the county as an agency at risk for legal responsibility.

County attorney Adren Nance said if there is any kind of litigation brought against the hospital, no matter what the name, it would be addressed through the contractual provisions with Lovelace and its partner, Community Healthcare Corporation.

Pato added that lawsuits against county hospitals will often name a political agency, something that has happened in other counties he and Nance represent but ultimately the agency is dismissed.

“When it’s a county hospital like this, the county may be drug in but it is dismissed from the case because it has no part in the provision of care,” Pato said. “The county is not responsible.”

County commissioner Troy Richardson said he agreed the word ‘hospital’ should be part of the name, but wondered if there was a cleaner way to incorporate the operator.

“‘Operated by... I’m just picturing it on the building,” he said.

Valencia County Hospital: A Lovelace Operation was the suggestion of commissioner Morris Sparkman.

Construction update

At the March 19 meeting, Art Tatum, FBT Architect’s president and director of design, went through the overall site plan for the hospital and the floor plan. The plans include 11 inpatient rooms, an emergency department, imaging suite containing an MRI and CT, two operating rooms, two endoscopy suites and recovery and prep rooms.

Tyler Nunn, the vice president and senior project manager for Bradbury Stamm, the builders, said construction is fully underway with foundations being poured.

“We will have that complete in the next two weeks,” Nunn said. “The site was graded and cleared. We are coordinating with the operators, making sure everything is in place. Working with the village (of Los Lunas) has been great and (the state construction industry division) has been wonderful as well.”

Nunn said he didn’t see any reason the project wouldn’t be completed by the anticipated end of June 2026 due date.

“We are on budget for construction, pricing has been coming in where we expected,” he said. “We were nervous due to the pricing climate right now, but it’s coming in where expected.”

Saiz said a lot of work has been done and it’s taken a long time to get here, but “it’s been 20 years in the waiting and we want to make sure to get it right.”