Algernon D’Ammassa Las Cruces Bulletin
Memorial Medical Center confirmed Thursday that CEO John Harris, who led the hospital for 10 years, will retire this month.
“We greatly appreciate John’s decades of service to Memorial and the Las Cruces community and wish him well in this next chapter,” the hospital said in a press release. “The recruitment process for a new permanent CEO is underway and we will update our community as soon as a new leader is found. Dennis Knox will serve as interim CEO beginning next week.”
Harris succeeded Paul Herzog as head of the private hospital in November 2013. He previously led five Southern California hospitals owned by Universal Health Services and was CEO of hospitals in several Western states for nearly 40 years before joining LifePoint Health, the Tennessee-based company that operates a nationwide chain of hospitals, including Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces. LifePoint is owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management.
The announcement of Harris’ departure came weeks after New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that his office was investigating Memorial Medical Center over complaints about denial of services to patients who could not pay or had insurance not accepted by the hospital, as well as questions about the hospital’s billing practices and its compliance with consumer protection laws.
In June, the hospital was the focus of an NBC News report in which numerous former patients came forward with allegations about the hospital’s practices and which caught the attention of city and town officials who questioned whether Memorial, a privately run, for-profit hospital on public land, had violated the terms of its lease.
Harris denied that Memorial violated its lease, said the NBC report contained “inaccuracies and misinformation” and defended the hospital’s services to indigent patients. He had declined an interview with NBC and Memorial did not make him available for interviews with the local press after the report. In response to the attorney general’s investigation, Memorial said it would cooperate fully but did not comment further.
