CHC welcomes four doctors to medical staff

The medical staff of the Commonwealth Health Center recently got a boost with the entry of four new recruits, bringing the total number of doctors at the Saipan hospital to 36.

Department of Public Health medical staff chief Dr. Marek A. Rozwadowski conceded, though, that there is still a need for more doctors as the Internal Medicine department remains understaffed.

Rozwadowski said Thursday that three of the new doctors have already arrived and are currently practicing at the hospital, while another would arrive next week.

He said the Psychiatry and Anesthesiology departments are now fully staffed with the arrival of Dr. William Hay and Dr. Michael Hart. Hay is currently handling matters in Psychiatry along with Dr. Willi Gutowski, while Hart, Dr. Eric Robinson, and Rozwadowski focus on Anesthesiology.

Dr. Robin Shearer, also a new addition, now serves as director of Medical Affairs and provides services to several departments.

Also, Emergency Medicine will be fully staffed as soon as Dr. James Stempien arrives from British Columbia, Canada.

Other fully staffed departments are Surgery, Nephrology, and Pediatrics.

Meanwhile, only five doctors make up the Internal Medicine staff—Drs. Janna Wilgus, Htin Kyaw, Vicharn Pima, Norma Ada, and Dan Vanderende. The hospital also lacks a radiologist.

“Internal Medicine particularly is really suffering. There is a great need and therefore the services that they can provide are reduced way below the optimal level, but they’re doing the best that they can,” Rozwadowski said.

He said the lack of staff at Internal Medicine limits the attention that each patient would be able to receive compared to if the department is fully staffed.

“Yes, [service is still provided] but they are not getting the attention they should be getting if [we] were fully staffed and its just impossible with the numbers. [But] urgent problems are dealt with but the preventative aspects and ongoing care is certainly reduced,” he said.

He said doctors are recruited from the United States and Canada primarily because positions here have to have either Canadian or American licenses to be licensable in the CNMI.

“Recruiting is an ongoing process depending on the needs of a particular department,” Rozwadowski said. “We are still very actively working [on recruiting] but it’s very difficult to find people to fill the spots. On some departments, it’s extremely hard [to recruit]. There’s big supply shortage of certain specialties particularly radiology, anesthesiology, but internal medicine seems to be very difficult too to get over here.”

Other doctors currently serving at the Saipan hospital are Dr. Francois Claasens, Dr. Michael Conrad, Dr. Dwayne Coad, Dr. Leon Hart, Dr. Rachel Fitzpatrick, Dr. Bernadette Saccommano, and Dr. Stephan Samoyloff in the emergency room; Dr. Imran Zahid in Nephrology; Dr. Bob George, Dr. Ben Sawer, Dr. John Yarofalir, Dr. Tim Austin, and Dr. Florian Braig in Surgery; and Dr. Richard Brostrom as medical director of Public Health. The list also includes pathologist Dr. Walter Conner.

Rozwadowski said Zahid will be joined by a colleague this December.