Varied proposals floated to help CHC deal with crisis

From lawmakers donating a portion of their discretionary funding and making sure stamps are available to mail collection notices, to guaranteeing that the transition to a non-profit healthcare corporation pushes through—these were just some of suggestion offered by House and Senate members during Friday’s meeting to address the emergency declaration at the Commonwealth Health Center.

Among the proposals, Rep. Janet Maratita’s (Ind-Saipan) suggestion for lawmakers to donate part of their allotments to raise the $500,000 CHC immediately needs to pay vendors of critical supplies and services stood out.

“My solution is to challenge all the House members, all of the Senate members to contribute to this $500,000 to assist. Instead of marching [to the Governor’s Office], we all have a responsibility to assist our people and our Commonwealth. Let the record reflect that I authorized the secretary of Finance to check how much I have left in my allotment and see if it can be applied to this $500,000,” she said at the tailend of the meeting called by Senate Standing Committee on Health and Welfare chair Sen. Ralph DLG. Torres (R-Saipan) at the Senate chamber.

Senate Floor Leader Pete Reyes (R-Saipan) pointed out, though, that lawmakers’ annual allotments are actually already tapped out this late in the fiscal year.

“I believe all the members don’t have the money in their accounts. I know I don’t have the money but if I have the money [I would be glad to help]. As long as I have salaries for my staff, I’m not worried about travel expenses [because I don’t really travel] but the thing is Janet also doesn’t have anymore money on her account, too,” he said.

This was seconded by Senate President Paul Manglona, who said “I know that I have no funding left as far as uncommitted funding but I can look at it and whatever funding I have I will give.”

Manglona, meanwhile, continued to champion Public Law 16-51, which called for mandating the transition of the Department of Public Health into the new Commonwealth Health Corp. by Oct. 1, 2011.

“Not only do we need to look into this short-term emergency we also have to take care of the longer term. It’s for that reason that we need to implement Public Law 16-51. That’s the long-term solution because you will run the hospital like an independent corporation. They get to collect whatever account receivables they collect and they get to keep it. So they don’t have to work through the government bureaucracy just to have money for pharmaceutical needs or for lab supplies,” said the Senate president.

Press secretary Angel Demapan said it is indeed the Fitial administration’s hope that the interim procedures will be able to stabilize vendor obligations to CHC as it seeks to transition into a corporation.

“By then, we hope that the corporation will be able to improve and increase its collection efforts of outstanding hospital charges,” he said in an email to the Saipan Tribune.

Acting health secretary Esther Muña said the transition to a corporation and giving $5 million as seed money for post-CHC operations is a good start.

“They are talking about $5 million in seed money. Is it adequate? Probably not for the entire fiscal year but it will give us the tools. We can make decisions, we can hire staff, and we can determine what is more important to pay. We know that if we have the money we know how to use the resources. Giving us that decision-making without having to deal with Finance is important. Again it’s about the cash. Having the $5 million, it will now only be a question of how best to manage it,” she said.

Sen. Jovita M. Taimanao (Ind-Saipan), meanwhile, scored CHC for failing to address the crisis administratively, saying that Muña and her staff should better monitor “collection receivable versus expenditures” to help avoid the current crisis.

House Vice Speaker Felicidad Ogumoro (Cov-Saipan) seconded Taimano’s call and said CHC should begin prioritizing expenses for what is really critical.

One such priority that CHC failed to address is acquiring $1,000 worth of stamps needed to mail out billings that could net the hospital as much as $1 million in collectibles.

“I cannot understand why CHC can’t come up with $1,000 for stamps to send billings to collect $1 million,” asked Manglona.

Reyes chimed in, “Surely, surely $1,000 can be found. It’s a matter of administrators making priorities.”

In CHC’s defense, Muña said, “When you don’t have the cash even the $1,000 isn’t there.” Muña said she would “probably be crucified” for mentioning the $1,000 worth of stamps during the meeting.

Responding to suggestions from Taimanao and Ogumoro that CHC appears to lack plans in prioritizing its needs, Muña admitted that they don’t even have time to plan.

“The reality is we couldn’t really plan when you’re trying to solve the issues about not having the supplies available. What we hope to do it go back to planning again. So if we can pay our bills we can go back to doing that,” she said.