New Mexico’s newly confirmed well being secretary, Patrick Alendo, is not avoiding questions on stepping down as Oregon’s prime well being official in early January, simply earlier than a brand new governor takes workplace.
He introduced his resignation in November, days after Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek was elected. He did not have a lot selection.
It was give up or give up for Allen, 60, who had spent 5 years as director of the Oregon Well being Authority, Kotek had stated on the marketing campaign path she would hearth amid criticism of his dealing with of the state’s conduct issues. System.
“If I used to be operating for governor, I might most likely be fired, too,” Allen stated in a latest interview.
Throughout his preliminary listening to by the Senate Guidelines Committee after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed him to go the New Mexico Division of Well being, he made related remarks.
Allen joins an company fighting staffing shortages in a post-pandemic interval following the retirement of Dr. David Schras, who grew to become the face of the state’s response to COVID-19 whereas operating each the Division of Well being and Human Providers . It faces tough challenges: filling vacancies. enhancing entry to well being care; addressing not solely prevalent illnesses amongst state residents but additionally neighborhood wants comparable to water high quality, nutritious meals, and immunizations. It should additionally put together the state for the following pandemic.
Allen is blunt concerning the criticism he confronted at Oregon.
“The actual fact is, I did not repair the state’s behavioral well being system within the 5 years I used to be there,” he stated. “Now, you and I might imagine there are causes for that, and the pandemic is definitely part of that, however the voters do not care. They should not. They know they’re sad seeing folks sleeping on the streets in downtown of Portland overtly use medicine and are sad that their family and friends members cannot entry the providers they want.”
Kotek’s vow to “clear home on the Oregon Well being Authority” after her election was “a fairly pure response,” she stated.
Allen, who was confirmed by the Senate in February to function the well being secretary of Lujan Grisham’s cupboard, stated the governor accused him of “steadfastly supporting the Division of Well being. The company and the folks in it have been by way of so much. They do not it’s an exaggeration to say that individuals are traumatized.
“And like well being providers throughout the nation, we did what we needed to do to get issues achieved in the course of the pandemic,” he added. “And that meant leaving some methods by the wayside whereas we discovered how one can do issues shortly.”
His pandemic function, as he likes to explain it, will contain coping with a employees emptiness price that on paper is approaching 30% with greater than 1,000 jobs unfilled.
Allen stated he believes the emptiness charges are inflated for quite a few causes, primarily as a result of some positions had been created with anticipated funding, together with grants, that didn’t materialize.
His purpose is to first “clear these vacancies out of the system.”
He believes the division’s precise emptiness price is someplace within the low to mid 20% vary.
“There’s not an trade on the market that is not severely understaffed,” Allen stated, including that his company has a compelling case to make to focus on “millennials and post-millennials who’re motivated to work in mission-driven organizations ».
He stated the message needs to be: “You come to work right here not as a result of you are going to make financial institution as an infectious illness specialist, however as a result of you may have the chance day by day to assist folks, to make your nook of New Mexico a greater place. than it might in any other case be.’
The Division of Well being is within the early levels of making a plan to handle quite a few points, Allen stated.
A significant focus is determining how one can enhance entry to well being throughout the state, which he stated goes past having the ability to see a physician often and contains “investments round water high quality and entry to nutritious meals, immunizations for youngsters, all these issues that assist communities to be wholesome. How can we ship that to all of New Mexico?”
After the pandemic, he stated, he hopes “folks can pay extra consideration to the non-sexy issues that assist us dwell longer and more healthy lives.”
Allen can even provide recommendation because the state tries to create a state well being care authority as a precedence for Lujan Grisham. The Legislature handed Senate Invoice 16, which seeks to alter the Division of Human Providers to the Division of Well being Authority.
The authority, which might exchange the Division of Human Providers, would mix varied departments and be charged with decreasing medical health insurance prices for public staff within the state.
The facility wouldn’t fall underneath Allen’s purview, however he stated “when the mud settles from the assembly and we perceive what did or didn’t occur, the governor can work out what we have to do going ahead.”
Allen’s work raises the opportunity of one other virus, like chook flu, that crosses many nations, together with the USA.
“It is sort of disappointing [COVID-19] it was a once-in-a-100-year expertise,” Allen stated. “It is nearly definitely not going to be one other 100 years earlier than we see one other infectious illness like this.”
Studying concerning the nature of infectious illnesses is only one a part of Allen’s new function, and it is a far cry from his childhood desires of rising as much as be a highschool band trainer. The Portland native stated he loved enjoying the violin, clarinet and saxophone.
He put apart the instruments for a banker’s ledger after learning economics on the College of Oregon after which labored in varied banking positions for many years, realizing alongside the way in which “his common ability set is that I can go right into a state of affairs the place I do not know a ton about , be capable to be taught it shortly, a course of by way of the issues that have to occur and work out what to do.”
Allen finally moved into state authorities and ended up operating the Oregon Division of Client and Enterprise Providers, which oversees constructing security, office security and finance.
That have led former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to nominate him director of the state’s Well being Authority in 2017.
Former Oregon state Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, who labored with Allen regularly, stated she was “uneasy” when she took the job.
“I knew he did not have a lot of a background in well being and was fearful he would not be a visionary,” she stated, including that he shortly discovered he had the best expertise.
“He is an excellent listener, he is an extremely onerous employee, and consequently, he is been an excellent director,” she stated. “He introduced nice stability to the division.”
Oregon state senator Elizabeth Steiner additionally praised his efficiency. “I am a agency believer {that a} good supervisor would not essentially have to have experience in that. They should have experience in figuring out expertise, hiring them and maintaining folks,” he stated.
Allen did “an incredible job” in the course of the pandemic, Steiner added. He felt that Allen led the well being service with “an incredible quantity of grace and good humor and adopted the science”.
Steiner stated criticism of Allen’s dealing with of behavioral well being was unfair.
“He did the perfect he might with the state of affairs,” she stated. “Oregon has traditionally struggled so much to have a very good behavioral well being system.”
Some Republican senators in New Mexico voted in opposition to Allen, arguing that his method to the pandemic in Oregon was much like that in New Mexico and resulted at school and enterprise closures.
Allen stands by his selections. The Commonwealth Fund’s 2022 report on how states dealt with the COVID-19 disaster in well being care entry, high quality, outcomes and spending ranked Oregon 14th, tied with Maine and Pennsylvania and effectively above many states, together with New Mexico, which ranked twenty sixth.
Allen stated he first met with Louyan Grisham basically in November as he started weighing different job alternatives. He was searching for a brand new problem.
He famous that New Mexico and Oregon differ in some ways. “I am simply beginning to scratch the floor of understanding these dynamics and serious about how I method issues like well being fairness right here,” she stated.
“As a result of if I take the issues I discovered there and attempt to do the identical factor right here, I believe I will crash and burn and I ought to.”