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OAG lawyer will continue to serve healthcare corp.
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Posted on Apr 30 2012
Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive officer Juan N. Babauta disclosed yesterday that the organization will continue to use the services of a lawyer appointed by the Office of the Attorney General to represent both the board and its management.
He said that Attorney General Edward Buckingman is now preparing a list of possible legal counsels that will be acceptable to the corporation board.
Board members recently expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of assistant attorney general James Kearney, saying it would be better to hire an independent lawyer. They claimed that Kearney gave the board “bad advice” when the corporation decided to hire Idaho-based International Consulting Services for the hospital’s billing and collection services.
Board member Anthony Aguon even recommended the filing of an ethics complaint against Kearney for allegedly putting the board at risk.
Babauta told Saipan Tribune yesterday that no such complaint will be pursued because the corporation has to deal with more pressing issues. The hospital is still under a state of emergency.
“This is something I was asked to do [by the board]. But this is an issue that is unnecessary. We have a lot of work to do and we have to focus on our biggest problems rather than on this issue,” said Babauta.
Under the law that created the corporation, the board serves only as an advisory body; the CEO calls all the shots.
Babauta said that the board has accepted the service of an OAG-appointed lawyer because it has no other choice, considering its present financial constraints. “We agreed…because we really don’t have much choice [at this time],” he said.
Based on the law, the AG still has to approve the hiring of an independent lawyer to represent the corporation—a provision that could be revisited in the future to give the corporation full autonomy, according to Babauta.
