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CHCC to recruit new orthopedic surgeon
Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is in need of an orthopedic surgeon and CHCC chief executive officer Esther Muna said they are actively recruiting one to succeed its last orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Grant Walker.
“The recruitment and hiring process is still active here at CHCC. We might lose physicians but the reason for us actively recruiting is because we need to keep high quality care and having physicians coming in is necessary,” Muna said.
Muna also said that the recruitment for physicians now is for a mid-level provider for Rota.
“We’re actively recruiting and we’ve had recent hires that will be coming in the next month. One [of these is an] internal medicine doctor. We will also have a new anesthesiologist because our anesthesiologist here will be leaving. We are recruiting for ER (emergency room) and a full-time psychiatrist,” she said.
“We actually have one orthopedic surgeon that we’re looking at that is going through the recruitment process such as credentialing, licensing, and every thing else, but he is a likely candidate,” she added.
CHCC has a total of 33 physicians. One on Rota, one on Tinian, one nephrologists, one part-time psychiatrist, seven internal medicine doctors, three surgeons, three anesthesiologists, one atthe Kagman Community Health Center, four ER doctors, one gastroenterologist, three OB/GYN, five pediatricians, one in family medicine, and one pathologist.
“Compared to what we had before we have enough doctors here. They are only physicians and not special care kind of physicians,” Muna said.
Earlier, Muna told Saipan Tribune that the hospital is looking into specialized care after revenue streams are identified.
The hospital is looking at increasing specialized care so that medical referrals wouldn’t be required and that specialized treatment can finally be done in the CNMI.
“Next month we’re expecting the two doctors and then later on we’re going to lose an ER doctor and then gain another ER doctor,” she said.
“I think we need to do more especially for Rota,” she added.
