House panel pushes for Manila liaison office

A House of Representatives panel believes that it is high time for the CNMI government to revive the Manila Liaison Office it had closed down four years ago, citing its importance to CNMI medical referral patients.

In a special committee report, Rep. Clyde Norita said that “it is prime time to look at an alternative for referral of Commonwealth patients.”

This comes soon after Norita’s special committee looked into the Hawaii Liaison Office’s operations following complaints from residents, including a patient’s family.

Although the special committee found no grave violations of policies at HLO, it recommended that an alternate office must be set up to mitigate costs.

Norita’s panel said the Hawaii office caters to some 130 patients each year from the CNMI.

“The cost to operate the office can be drastically reduced if patients who are not qualified for Medicaid can be referred to the Philippines,” he said, noting that this idea is consistent with the proposed reopening of the Manila Liaison Office.

“The committee urges the Legislature to support the reopening of the Manila Liaison Office by providing funding,” said the panel.

The special committee was composed of Norita and Reps. Oscar M. Babauta, Justo Quitugua, and Arnold Palacios.

Despite various efforts to resurrect the Manila office, no concrete action has taken place.

In late 2002, the Department of Public Health issued a request for proposal seeking private vendors to facilitate the treatment of CNMI patients in the Philippines. The DPH put out the advertisements in both Manila and CNMI-based newspapers. The department said a winning proposer would provide logistics, ground, and air support to CNMI patients in the Philippines.

By February 2003, the department said that it received four proposers but authorities said the actual awarding of contract never took place. The department did not make public the reasons behind it.

The department was also pursuing medical referral agreements with Philippine hospitals, particularly the newly opened Asian Hospital in Alabang, a suburb north of Manila.

This is in view of the department’s thrust to focus its referral program to regional facilities, primarily hospitals in Manila, to save cost. Philippine healthcare cost is about a fifth of the average price in Hawaii, authorities said. Despite this, the CNMI referral program only referred a few number of patients to the Philippines.

The CNMI government closed the Manila Office effective September 2000, citing serious financial conditions. MLO was originally set up in October 1994 as part of the memorandum of understanding between the two governments concerning CNMI-bound workers. The office, which had two employees just before the termination, received a budget of $65,000. At one time, it employed as much as 10 people who were under professional service contracts. It also acted as liaison for medical referrals in the Philippines.

In early 2000, then Senate Floor Leader Pete P. Reyes renewed calls for the closure of the Manila office. He said the government should better use its budget to increase government funding on law-mandated scholarships and finance the Northern Marianas College Small Business Development.

He said the CNMI government would save close to $100,000 in rental and personnel wage expenses from the office closure.