‘KCHC helps ease hospital’s workload’

The Kagman Community Health Center has eased the workload of the Commonwealth Health Center, the CNMI’s lone hospital, providing healthcare services to the people on the eastern side of Saipan, according to chief executive officer Vince Castro.

He pointed out that people who live in Kagman and its nearby areas now have their medical checkup and other healthcare services at the KCHC instead of going all the way to the hospital on Navy Hill.

“Through our work, we keep a lot of people out of the hospital, out of the [emergency room] when they are sick. It saves the hospital a lot of money,” Castro said. “We have to keep providing healthcare services. We can look at other things for us to settle here.”

He pointed out that KCHC is a non-profit organization that get most of its funding from the federal government, adding that some hospitals in the U.S. mainland provide funding to federally qualified health centers.

KCHC re-opened last Saturday after nearly two weeks of closure due to an expired land license. They began seeing patients again on Monday.

The Governor’s Office, through the Department of Public Lands, in coordination with the CNMI Office of the Attorney General and Governor’s Office legal counsel Gil Birnbrich, transferred the land license to KCHC.

Senate President Arnold I. Palacios (R-Saipan) said that CHCC agreeing to turn over the facility turns a new leaf in their partnership with KCHC. “I’m very hopeful that we can have a new beginning in this relationship.

“CHCC and KCHC will have to figure out how to join hands. CHCC plays a major role in [CNMI] healthcare and KCHC is an integral part [of that]. I’m glad that we at the Legislature had the opportunity to spend time and discuss this issue publicly,” said Palacios.

“Unfortunately, it was a crisis level situation, but we’re happy to see that we’ve gone beyond that and resolved this issue with the facility,” he added.

KCHC-CHCC partnership
KCHC board chair Velma Palacios said they are also looking forward to their continued partnership with the hospital and CHCC. “We also need CHCC, we’ve always said that. They are the lone hospital and we want to continue this partnership.”

“It doesn’t mean now that we’re operating separately. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need them [CHCC]. Everybody goes to CHC because they are the only hospital. We need them to also take care of our patients that need emergency services.”

She added KCHC, which has been operating for five years now, wouldn’t be where they are right now without CHCC’s help. “We will always remain partners with CHCC. We could have not done this without them. We were [grant] co-applicants with them.”

“We’re the child and we have grown. We wanted to be on our own but we still welcome our partnership with CHCC. We will continue our partnership with CHCC,” Palacios said.

She said KCHC would also get additional equipment to provide better healthcare services to the people of Kagman and nearby areas. “We’re still working in getting our equipment here.”

“We have some equipment that were donated by anonymous doctors to our clinic. We’re just waiting for a location to start bringing them in. We thank our generous donors,” added Palacios.