Scrapping of housing perks for off-island hires draws CHC ire

Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez has warned the House Committee on Judicial and Governmental Operations against removing the housing benefits for off-island hires due to its severe impact on health services.

In letter to committee chair Rep. Dino M. Jones, the public health chief said the housing benefit is an incentive to attract and retain professionals who would otherwise not come to Saipan since the salaries offered here are not competitive with the current scale in the U.S. or Canada.

“When the housing benefit is added, it helps to offset the lower salaries offered. It has helped greatly with the staff retention, which reduces turnover costs on repatriation, shipping and paying for short-term specialists coverage,” Mr. Villagomez said.

The practice of attracting and retaining off-island health care professionals has made it possible for DPH to provide more services at the Commonwealth Health Center, thus increasing coverage of services, and saving on referral costs to off-island facilities, he added. The situation does not only apply to the recruitment of physicians but for nursing and ancillary services as well.

With the shortage of health care professionals around the world, CHC is competing with hospitals in the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia and other countries to attract these group of professionals.

As such, other countries have increased benefit packages such as sign-on bonuses, moving expenses, stock options, day care for children, generous health care plans and educational opportunities.

U.S. recruiters have been in Saipan and Guam offering generous benefit packages as an incentive to recruit nurses to work in the United States. This has resulted in shortage of nurses working in Guam Memorial Hospital which led it to shut down some of its services until it gets a replacement.

Mr. Villagomez emphasized that the Northern Marianas has been able to retain most of its professional staff due to the package of benefits offered and lower tax rates.

Budgetary constraints in the CNMI have caused the department to consider cost-cutting measures such as eliminating the storage benefits for off-island hires and reduce the shipping benefit to a “relocation allowance.”