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 decade of service to Memorial and the Las Cruces community and wish him the very best in this next chapter,” the hospital stated in a news release. “The recruitment process for a new permanent CEO is underway, and we will keep our community informed when a new leader has been identified. Dennis Knox will serve as interim CEO beginning next week.”
Harris succeeded Paul Herzog as the privately-owned hospital’s leader in November 2013. Previously, he had overseen five hospitals in southern California owned by Universal Health Services, and had served as CEO of hospitals in several western states for nearly 40 years before joining LifePoint Health, the Tennessee-based corporation that operates a chain of hospitals nationwide including Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces. LifePoint is owned by the private equity firm, Apollo Global Management.
The announcement of Harris’ departure comes weeks after New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced his office was investigating Memorial Medical Center over complaints about denial of services to patients who could not pay or had insurance the hospital did not accept, and questions about the hospital’s billing practices and compliance with consumer protection laws.
In June, the hospital was the focus of an NBC News report that aired allegations by numerous former patients about the hospital’s practices and caught the attention of city and council officials who questioned whether Memorial, a privately-owned, for-profit hospital sitting on public land, had violated terms of its lease.
Harris denied Memorial had violated its lease and said the NBC report contained “inaccuracies and misinformation” and defended the hospital’s services for indigent patients. He had declined to be interviewed by NBC and Memorial did not make him available for local press interviews following the report. In response to the Attorney General’s investigation, Memorial said it would cooperate fully but did not comment further.
