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Airport plans Ebola facility
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Posted on Nov 28 2014
The Commonwealth Ports Authority, in tandem with Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., has designated an “isolation facility” below Gate 2 of the Saipan International Airport for communicable diseases such as the Ebola virus.
Conversations for identifying such an area sprang up between CPA and the hospital corporation amidst the Ebola virus outbreak, according to CPA executive director Maryann Lizama. The area would allow an enclosed space to be set up for a “screening process” by CHC, she said at a board meeting this week.
The area is in the airport’s arrival corridor before US. Customs and Border Protection section, she said.
She added that CHC requested for the facility not just for cases of Ebola but for other communicable diseases as well.
CHC did not have funding for this, she said, but they have since worked with the CPA engineering office in what they need for a permanent two-part enclosure in the arrival corridor.
“Seeing that CPA is proactive with our traveling public, we want to make that [facility] available,” she told the CPA board. The facility for now would come out of CPA’s pocket, she said.
The return for CPA, as discussed with CHCC, Lizama said, is that CPA’s personnel would be accorded with priority for training and grant funding on CHCC’s side for these diseases.
A supplemental budget of $44,880 for the isolation facility was approved at the board meeting.
