All’s Fair in Healthcare Worker Recruiting

Around Houston Medical Center are six billboards inviting its employees to come to New Mexico, where they will be “Free to Provide.” The message is repeated in full page ads in the Sunday editions of dailies in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston.

New Mexico’s governor and state Health Department are taking advantage of turmoil in the Texas medical community caused by changes in abortion laws to recruit health care workers.

Our shortage of practitioners is well known; some rural hospitals have closed their obstetrics wards. And how is your personal access to health care? My own gynecologist is pressed to see his patients and still try to answer their questions. I’m lucky to have a few minutes of attention.

However, for some people this is a touchy subject. The campaign, paid for by taxpayers, could just bring more abortion doctors, say critics. 

Let’s look at this.

Texas has a problem. Its ban on abortions after the sixth week has been in effect since 2021. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, the Texas law became a near-total ban on abortion. The Texas Supreme Court upheld the ban in May when a group of women sued over emergency exceptions. Some patients have been outspoken about the law’s impact when they’ve had complications.

In a letter accompanying the ads, the governor informs providers that New Mexico permits abortions and protects medical practitioners who administer them. And she wades into the controversy, telling them: “When you pledged to dedicate your lives to medicine, you did so with the understanding that the health and well-being of your patients would always be your priority. You took your oath with patients –– not politicians –– in mind.”    

The Free to Provide website doesn’t mention abortion specifically but does provide information about jobs of all kinds across the state, as well as scholarship opportunities, and even some tourist information about destinations and cultural events. How many doctors or nurses or therapists or whatever, who are 10 years from retirement, might come visit with an eye toward practicing here and then retiring in place?

Department of Health Secretary Patrick Allen made that point when he wrote recently that New Mexico needs health care providers. “By that, I mean all sorts of medical professionals – general practitioners, dentists, obstetricians, gynecologists, behavioral health experts, pediatricians, surgeons, nurses, neurologists and psychiatrists, among others.”

I would add that when we talk about crime, including the mentally ill people who are repeat offenders, and the subject turns to treatment, as it did during the special legislative session, we don’t have the professionals who can treat them.

Hospitals, clinics and other employers don’t see it as abortion recruiting. More than 100 of them are participating in the campaign and posting job opportunities, Allen wrote.

I don’t think most people want New Mexico to become the abortion capital of the nation, but Texas has pushed us in that direction. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 14,200 patients from Texas came here for abortions last year. That was a 260% increase since 2020. We might sympathize with the Texas women, but that kind of increase puts pressure on New Mexico’s already thin health care system.

Allen may be avoiding politics, but his boss isn’t. The governor’s letter was a poke in the eye to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He poked back, calling the campaign a political stunt and bragging on his state’s economic successes. “People and businesses vote with their feet,” he said, warning our governor to pay attention to New Mexico problems.

Abbott, who is no stranger to political stunts, has inflamed border issues. But that’s a whole ‘nother column.