‘IMC is to blame for its own predicament’

The Island Medical Center is in the state it is in right now because of either negligence, recklessness or the intentional conduct of its management, according to the lawyer for the Department of Public Health.

DPH legal counsel Alexander Gorman said that the predicament with which some guest workers now find themselves in due to the clinic’s closure should be blamed on the clinic’s management.

“This unfortunate situation falls squarely on the shoulders of IMC,” Gorman said.

IMC owner Antony Glad, in an earlier interview, expressed concerns for the guest workers who have no access to the results of their medical tests since DPH closed down the clinic on March 5 due to noncompliance with rules and regulations

According to Gorman, though, “Mr. Glad was not concerned about the guest workers when his clinic was counterfeiting, falsifying and forging lab result records in support of health clearances.”

Gorman said that, as a result of these unlawful conduct, “all of the recent health screening exam results are compromised, which will subject the workers and the employers to undergo and pay for new health screening exams at alternate clinics.”

Glad had acknowledged that there “was an alleged forgery” but “we just don’t know who was doing it.”

“We’re not agreeing that it happened, but we are not denying that it did happen,” Glad said.

Glad suspects that it was his former accountant, Romeo Dolot, who tampered with patient health results. According to Glad, Dolot managed the clinic’s financial accounts and daily operations.

Dolot fled Saipan on March 6, the day after the Bureau of Environmental Health shut down the clinic.

Glad had also complained why DPH closed down the clinic without informing him first, but DPH said: “It is the duty and responsibility of the management of DPH to swiftly [and] effectively protect the public from the unlawful conduct occurring at IMC.”

The department said that the clinic was not informed in advance “because there was a need to preserve any and all evidence of the continuing unlawful conduct at the clinic.”

DPH immediately appointed Linn H. Asper as hearing officer as soon as the closure came into effect. An administrative hearing was held March 14, during which both DPH and IMC had an opportunity to present evidence and present arguments through their respective legal counsels.

Asper issued her decision on March 19, 2008, finding that the summary suspension of the clinic’s sanitary permit was lawful.

According to Gorman, a criminal investigation against IMC and its management commenced and a criminal search warrant was issued and served on IMC. Pursuant to this warrant, evidence from the clinic were seized by the Criminal Division of the Office of the Attorney General.

Glad said he was never given the opportunity to re-enter his clinic since its closure and mentioned that there are more than 400 medical tests “trapped behind the clinic’s doors.

Glad maintains that IMC was not given due process in connection with the suspension of the sanitary permit and closure of the clinic.

Gorman refuted this, saying that Glad’s attorney was provided a copy of the decision on March 19 “so any assertions by Mr. Glad that he does not understand why these actions were taken by DPH are questionable at best.”

In her order, Asper stated that “the March 4, 2008, order of suspension of Sanitary Permit and closure of clinic, issued by DPH deputy secretary Lynn E. Tenorio against respondent Island Medical Center is affirmed.”

DPH Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez advises any nonresident workers and/or their employers who are awaiting the issuance of health clearances by IMC to go to an alternate health clinic that performs these types of exams so as not to delay the issuance of their permits.

“It is important that those individuals that normally receive their medical care at IMC get continued care at either CHC or any of the private clinics to ensure continuity of care,” Villagomez said, especially for those facing pressing health issues. “They must be addressed now rather than to wait for the reopening of IMC.”