OPINION: Health care in New Mexico in your voice

Health care has become a central concern in New Mexico in recent years. We’ve heard about waitlists and long drives for appointments, Medicaid cuts at the federal level, a shortage of specialty doctors, rural doctors, tribal doctors, young doctors. There’s plenty of lawsuits and large verdicts for malpractice, and debate about whether those laws should be reformed.

Last Sunday, we ran a collection of health care-related columns, and a Journal editorial.

We’d like to keep the conversation, and debate for solutions, going.

I’m inviting Journal readers to submit their stories and experiences in the state’s health care system. We’ll compile a series on the topic and publish the op-eds in Journal Opinion pages in the coming weeks. We’re already starting to get stories from patients and experts on the topic. Rep. John Block, R-Alamogordo, chimed in with a column in this week’s edition.

We want to provide readers with an accurate portrayal of health care in the state. So please share if your experience was positive or negative. Hopefully we can get a good sample.

We want rural and urban voices and people seeking different types of care — primary, mental health, specialty, emergency, long-term. What was easy or difficult? Were there unexpected bills? Malpractice? Settlements?

Let’s find out what works well and what needs to improve.

Let’s get beyond the numbers and put local faces on the issue. That way policy makers, health care leaders, consumers and providers know that it’s more than data and numbers — it’s real people who matter.

Columns can be submitted on the Journal’s website: abqjournal.com/opinion or emailed to me. Try to keep them 600 words or less. We’ll review them and flag columns in the series.

I get that it’s a big ask. Health care is a personal and usually private matter. But for years we’ve been seeing too many stories about a system that doesn’t serve the people of our state.

So let’s get a conversation going that motivates action.