Newly confirmed New Mexico Well being Secretary Patrick Allen doesn’t dodge questions on leaving his put up as Oregon’s prime well being official in early January, simply earlier than a brand new governor took workplace.

He introduced his resignation in November, days after Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek was elected. He didn’t have a lot of a alternative.

It was step down or be tossed out for 60-year-old Allen, who had spent 5 years as director of the Oregon Well being Authority — Kotek had mentioned on the marketing campaign path she would fireplace him amid criticism of his dealing with of issues with the state’s behavioral well being system.

“If I have been working for governor, I might have in all probability fired me, too,” Allen mentioned in a current interview.

Throughout his preliminary vetting by the Senate Guidelines Committee after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed him to steer New Mexico’s Division of Well being, he made related remarks.

Allen is moving into an company fighting staffing shortages in a post-pandemic interval following the retirement of Dr. David Scrase, who grew to become the face of the state’s response to COVID-19 whereas working each the Well being Division and the Human Providers Division. He faces robust challenges: filling vacancies; enhancing entry to well being care; addressing not simply prevalent sicknesses among the many state’s residents but in addition neighborhood wants, equivalent to water high quality, nutritious meals and vaccinations. He additionally should put together the state for the subsequent pandemic.

Allen is blunt in regards to the criticism he confronted in Oregon.

“The very fact is I didn’t repair the state behavioral well being system within the 5 years I used to be there,” he mentioned. “Now, you and I would suppose there are causes for that, and the pandemic is definitely a chunk of that, however voters don’t care. They shouldn’t need to. They know they’re sad seeing folks sleeping on the streets in downtown Portland overtly utilizing medication, and so they’re sad that their family and friends members can’t get entry to providers that they want.”

Kotek’s vow to “clear home on the Oregon State Well being Authority” after her election was “a reasonably pure response,” he mentioned.

Allen, who was confirmed by the Senate in February to function Lujan Grisham’s Cupboard well being secretary, mentioned the governor charged him with “taking agency maintain of the Division of Well being. … The company and the folks in it have been via quite a bit. It’s not an exaggeration to say persons are traumatized.

“And like well being businesses throughout the nation, we did what we would have liked to do to get stuff achieved through the pandemic,” he added. “And that meant leaving some methods by the aspect of the highway whereas we determined methods to get issues achieved shortly.”

His trans-pandemic function, as he likes to explain it, will embody coping with a employees emptiness charge that on paper nears 30% — with greater than 1,000 jobs unfilled.

Allen mentioned he believes the emptiness charges are overinflated for a variety of causes, largely as a result of some positions have been created with anticipated funding, together with grants, that didn’t come via.

His aim is to first “clear these vacancies out of the system.”

He believes the division’s precise emptiness charge is someplace within the low- to mid-20% vary.

“There’s not a sector on the market that’s not grievously wanting employees,” Allen mentioned, including his company has to make a compelling case to focus on “millennials and post-millennials who’re motivated to work in mission-based organizations.”

He mentioned the message needs to be: “You come to work right here not as a result of you’ll make financial institution as an infectious illness physician, however as a result of you’ve got a chance each single day to assist folks, to make your nook of New Mexico a greater place than it will have been in any other case.”

The Division of Well being is within the preliminary phases of making a plan to handle a variety of points, Allen mentioned.

One important focus is to determine methods to enhance well being entry throughout the state, which he mentioned goes past having the ability to commonly see a health care provider and contains “investments round water high quality and entry to nutritious meals, vaccinations for teenagers, all these issues that assist communities be wholesome. How do we offer that to all of New Mexico?”

After the pandemic, he mentioned, he hopes “folks pays extra consideration to the nonsexy stuff that helps us stay longer and more healthy.”

Allen additionally will provide recommendation because the state makes an attempt to create a statewide well being care authority — a precedence for Lujan Grisham. The Legislature authorised Senate Invoice 16, which goals to alter the Human Providers Division to the Well being Care Authority Division.

The authority, which might change the Human Providers Division, would mix numerous divisions and be tasked with decreasing medical health insurance prices for public staff within the state.

The authority wouldn’t fall underneath Allen’s purview, however he mentioned “as soon as the mud settles from the session and we work out what did or didn’t occur, the governor can work out what we have to do going ahead.”

Looming over Allen’s job is the opportunity of one other virus, like chook flu, which is working its means via a variety of nations, together with the USA.

“It’s kind of sobering that this [COVID-19] was a once-in-a-100-year expertise,” Allen mentioned. “It’s virtually definitely not going to be one other 100 years earlier than we see one other infectious illness like this.”

Studying in regards to the nature of infectious illnesses is only one a part of Allen’s new function — and a far cry from his childhood goals of rising as much as be a highschool band trainer. The Portland native mentioned he loved enjoying violin, clarinet and saxophone.

He put aside the devices for a banker’s ledger after learning economics at Oregon State College after which labored in numerous banking positions for many years, realizing alongside the way in which his “generic talent set is I’m able to enter right into a state of affairs I don’t know a ton about, be capable of study it shortly, sort of course of via what are the issues that have to occur and work out what to do.”

Allen finally moved into state authorities and ended up working Oregon’s Division of Shopper and Enterprise Providers, which oversees constructing security, office security and finance.

The expertise led former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to nominate him as director of the state’s Well being Authority in 2017.

Former Oregon state Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, who labored with Allen frequently, mentioned she was “apprehensive” when he took on the job.

“I knew he didn’t have a giant background in well being and was apprehensive he wouldn’t be a visionary,” she mentioned, including she shortly realized he had the suitable expertise.

“He’s a very good listener, he’s an extremely arduous employee, and in consequence, he was an excellent director,” she mentioned. “He introduced lots of stability to the division.”

Oregon state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner additionally lauded his efficiency. “I’m a agency believer {that a} good supervisor doesn’t essentially need to have experience in that subject material. They need to have experience in recognizing expertise, hiring them and protecting folks,” she mentioned.

Allen did “a tremendous job” through the pandemic, Steiner added. She felt Allen led the well being company with “a shocking quantity of grace and good humor and adopted the science.”

Steiner mentioned the criticism of Allen’s dealing with of behavioral well being was unfair.

“He did the perfect he might given the state of affairs,” she mentioned. “Oregon has traditionally struggled quite a bit to have behavioral well being system.”

Some Republican senators in New Mexico voted towards Allen, arguing his strategy to the pandemic in Oregon was just like that of New Mexico and resulted in faculties and companies closing down.

Allen stands by his selections.

The Commonwealth Fund’s 2022 report on how states dealt with the COVID-19 disaster when it comes to well being care entry, high quality, outcomes and spending positioned Oregon 14th, tied with Maine and Pennsylvania and much above many states, together with New Mexico, which ranked twenty sixth.

Allen mentioned he first met with Lujan Grisham just about in November as he started weighing different job alternatives. He was searching for a brand new problem.

He famous New Mexico and Oregon differ in some ways. “I’m solely actually starting to only scratch the floor of understanding these dynamics and take into consideration how I strategy issues like well being fairness right here,” he mentioned.

“As a result of if I take the issues I realized there and attempt to do the identical factor right here, I believe I’m going to crash on the rocks and burn — and I ought to.”