CHRISTUS ST. VINCENT REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER; BROKEN ELEVATORS KEEP PATIENTS, FAMILIES ON STAIRS.

Byline: PHAEDRA HAYWOOD

Santa Fe resident Dan Esquibel said he spent much of the last week at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center -- spending time with his wife who had an emergency appendectomy -- and was dismayed to find that neither of the facility's two main elevators were working.

"They need to get their act together, I think," Esquibel said. "That hospital is falling apart."

Esquibel, 45, said he walked up

and down the stairs of the three-story building most of the week and saw other visitors and patients climbing them, too.

"I saw a lady in her 80s coming up the stairs with an orderly behind her so she didn't fall," he said. "That's ridiculous."

Esquibel, a city of Santa Fe employee, said he also witnessed an episode where the door to the stairwell jammed, leaving people stuck on either side, unable to enter or exit the stairwell.

Esquibel said it wasn't until later in the week that he discovered a service elevator which some patients, visitors and employees seemed to already know about.

"There was a sign up," he said. "But it could not be clearly seen. It was not noticeable to the public at all. I had to ask somebody going in that direction where it was."

But, Esquibel said, conditions in the service elevator weren't ideal.

"Everyone who read (the sign) correctly got to share the elevator with the sick people. If you have to share one elevator between patients, cargo and the public, something is wrong."

Hospital spokesman Arturo Delgado said to his knowledge, both main elevators were only down for a matter of hours last week before one was fixed. The other one, Delgado said, has been down for about a month.

When a reporter visited the hospital Thursday, only one of the two main elevators was working. There were no signs regarding the status of the other elevator or the location of the service elevator.

Delgado said the service elevator is used for patient transport. He said patients can also use the two main elevators "if they are functioning. If the elevators are not functioning we might ask them to go up the stairs or make sure they were transported safely up the stairs."

Delgado said the hospital has been trying to repair the one troublesome lift for the past month to no avail and has since decided to simply replace all three of the elevators, which he speculated might be the original ones installed when the hospital was built in 1977.

Delgado said replacing the elevators will cost about $500,000 and take about six months to complete. The hospital has ordered the parts, Delgado said, and is only waiting for them to arrive before beginning the project. Work on the elevators should begin in the next month, he said.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or [e-mail].