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CHCC to transition staff out of housing perk
Instead of an abrupt cutoff in the housing benefits being provided its off-island hires, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. will be transitioning its employees out of this benefit over a period of time, according to CEO Esther Muña yesterday.
“It was decided that rather than removing the benefit one time and immediately risk an exodus of our clinical staff, we would gradually remove the benefits as appropriate and at contract negotiation,” Muña said.
She explained that the law that provided this benefit to the hospital’s off-island hires had a sunset provision that expired several years ago, which means housing benefits are no longer mandated.
“The decision to keep it, even with the sunset provision, was made prior to the establishment of the corporation,” she said.
Muña earlier told Saipan Tribune that the housing allowance would be stopped by the end of this fiscal year in September.
Muna said the decision to gradually phase out the housing allowance was made because it is difficult to recruit and “almost all of the clinical staff and medical staff are recipients of this benefit.”
The housing allowance is provided to medical staff and providers that are hired from outside the Commonwealth. The perk is $600 a month for single employees and $800 a month for those with families.
Based on CHCC records, it has over 100 employees that receive this benefit, mostly nurses recruited from the Philippines way back in the days of the Department of Public Health.
Muña said that none of the physicians at the hospital have the benefit.
“Also, no housing benefit is offered for new contracts for any clinical staff. Only nurses and ancillary staff with existing contracts maintained such benefit,” she said.
Muña noted that CHCC is not required to offer such benefits anymore but the transitioning is something CHCC is willing to do because “we care and understand the difficulty of transitioning.”
