Marianas Health hosts ‘Legislative Breakfast’

Some members of the 23rd CNMI Legislature, including Sen. Celina R. Babauta (D-Saipan), center, seated in white, pose for a photo with Marianas Health representatives and health advocates and partners during the Marianas Health Legislative Breakfast yesterday morning at the Queen’s Hall of the Kensington Hotel Saipan. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

Members of the 23rd CNMI Legislature attended the Marianas Health Services and health advocates’ Legislative Breakfast yesterday morning at the Queen’s Hall in Kensington Hotel, which served as a forum to discuss and share health challenges facing the CNMI in the hopes of coming up with solutions to these issues.

Before the group divided into roundtable discussions, presentations were made—first by George Cruz’s “Business as Usual”; then on oral cancer by Dr. Angelica Sabino, chief dentist at the Oral Health Clinic of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.; then a presentation by Dr. David Hardt from Hardt Eye Clinic: Diabetes Education Center; Tiana Ranjo, Health Education specialist at the Center for Living Independently; Patricia Coleman, interim dean of the Northern Marianas College-CREES; Dr. Devin Finco from Marianas Pharmacy; and George Cruz, president and administrator from Marianas Health.

At the same time, outreach booths were present from the Pacific Wellness Center, Marianas Home Care & Hospice, Sagan Hinemlo’ Family Clinic, Allied Medical Supplies, H.A.F.A. Initiative, Commonwealth Health Care Corps’ Immunization Program, Brabu Pharmacy, CNMI Developmental Disabilities Council, and the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services.

In their roundtable discussions, some priorities they shared on how to improve access to healthcare providers, improve prior authorization process, improve quality of healthcare, access to universal health insurance, investment in equipment and personnel, and more health care education.

Sen. Celina R. Babauta (D-Saipan) said the meeting was informative and she was glad that she attended. She hopes that there will be more sessions like these for lawmakers in the future as it is “an eye opener for many of us, especially the newly elected officials that just got into the Legislature.”

The roundtable discussions included talks with healthcare professionals “who are the providers in the community and see all kinds of medical, dental, and other issues.”

“So this is a good effort to try to collaborate and meet in the middle with policy makers in the Marianas,” she said.

When asked if there are any proposed solutions to some challenges that they might have discussed, she said “It’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s a bigger problem than we can find solutions for at this time. …There are deeper issues that we need to look into with Medicaid insurance, issues that affect health care providers,” said Babauta.

Rep. Malcolm Omar (Ind-Saipan) is thankful to Marianas Health for setting up the event. He said that they talked about the healthcare system, its flaws, and what they can do as lawmakers to help.

“There’s no Band-Aid solutions or one-time fixes for the challenges, but with collaborations like these, it’ll help us better see how we can resolve things moving forward,” said Omar.

Rep. Marissa Renee Flores (Ind-Saipan), credited George Cruz for “being a trailblazer and putting this together because now we have a better understanding of what needs to be done. We need to find a better way to provide service. The system obviously has failed, is failing, and we need to find a better way to improve so that we can provide better healthcare to our people.”

Marianas Health outreach coordinator Kovanni Cabrera thanked all the lawmakers and health partners that came out to the event. “Thank you to everyone that came out. The assistance they all gave today was very much appreciated.”

Marianas Health hopes to have more of these events in the future.