MULESHOE JOURNAL | MULESHOEJOURNAL.COM
THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2023 B1
Muleshoe Area Medical Center serving area seniors By Teresa Young Special to the Muleshoe Journal
Having a hospital facility in your city is an amenity many take for granted. But when an emergency happens or your family member is in need, it becomes crucial. Muleshoe area residents can rest easier knowing the Muleshoe Area Medical Center is there to provide the care they need close to home. According to administrator Dennis Fleenor, who has worked at MAMC for seven years, the hospital is a 25-bed critical access hospital, with a Level IV trauma center, inpatient care, physical therapy and swing bed services. While the facility does not offer surgical or maternity services, they support patients through acute and chronic medical conditions as well as strokes, heart attacks, farm or dairy accidents among other issues. When it comes to supporting area seniors, the facility is well equipped, and the swing bed services are particularly useful. “Swing bed is skilled nursing care at a hospital level. It’s a transition from the hospital, preparing them to go home and it keeps them from a nursing home,” noted Fleenor. “A lot of times after a hip or knee surgery they need a little more time to recover before going home. They get a little more individual attention in swing bed with specialized care that really helps them.” Fleenor said seniors represent a large portion of the clientele, both at the hospital and its auxiliary Medical Clinic of Muleshoe which sees 600 patients each month and offers routine clinic services as well as chronic care management and wellness. To care for this population well, the
hospital employs 75 individuals, which includes medical director Dr. Charles Addington and a few rotating ER physicians. The retirement of longtime local physician Dr. Bruce Purdy, who served 44 years in Muleshoe, left quite a vacancy that Fleenor said he’s still trying to fill. There are four and a half advanced practice practitioners at the facility to care for patients, which Fleenor said come from all around the area and as far as Eastern New Mexico as well. During the height of the COVID pandemic, he said the hospital administered 6,000 vaccines and distributed another 25,000 to area cities including Friona, Dimmitt, Morton, Levelland and Littlefield. On the outpatient side, the MAMC offers laboratory, radiology and physical therapy services. This includes a 16-slice CT scanner that provides physicians with faster diagnostic information and patients with less radiation exposure. It’s their reputation for great care that keeps patients coming back, and some driving further than expected for services. Retired insurance agent and lifelong Muleshoe resident Kenneth Henry is among the crowd. “It means a lot to me to have the hospital here. When I was a kid, we didn’t go to the doctor much. We had great doctors for years,” said Henry, whose wife Darlene had a recent stay following a stroke. “She spent 10 days in Lubbock, then came here. She was in the hospital for a month and couldn’t balance or walk well. They helped her with physical therapy and got her walking every day, and she was able to go home. They really helped her. Henry said he felt at ease if he needed to leave her side because he knew Darlene was in
good hands. “The nurses there were very nice, and they were there for her to get better and go home,” he said. “They did a super good job. They took good care of her and they got her back going.” Helping friends and neighbors like the Henrys is what spurs Fleenor and his employees to serve. And the Preferred Management group that handles operations at the facility is committed to improvements whenever possible to keep care at the highest possible levels. Fleenor said roof work is underway at the hospital, and recent insurance settlements are allowing for updates to the stucco damaged in the May 2022 hailstorm. The company is also tearing down the nursing home attached to the hospital that has not been in operation for 20-plus years. But the biggest challenge before Fleenor is filling that vacant physician’s spot, which he likens to finding a rainbow unicorn. He wants the hospital’s tradition of caring for neighbors and investing in the area to continue, and he knows not every doctor out there has that mindset. “We want to find the right person that wants to come be part of the community that is really required for this area,” he said. “I’m looking for the right provider to come here.” MAMC has been under the oversight of the Muleshoe Area Hospital District since 1989, and the district governance is by a five-member board of directors. The facility first opened in the late 1930s or early 1940s, with major additions coming in the 1970s and a brief closure in the 1980s. Preferred Management was contracted in 2015 to handle daily operations.