$1.7M reprogrammed for DPH

Acting governor Eloy S. Inos has reprogrammed $1.7 million in available funds from the Commonwealth Development Authority to help address the state of emergency at the Commonwealth Health Center.

“In light of the imminent threat the Commonwealth faces in having to close the doors of its healthcare facilities, I hereby exercise the emergency power to reprogram $1.7 million of unobligated and undisbursed bond earnings and CIP [Capital Improvement Project] repayment balances,” said Inos in a July 22 letter to CDA chair Pedro I. Itibus.

The funds were identified in a CDA report as of June 30, 2011.

Inos told Itibus that the reprogrammed funds should be made available to the CNMI general fund “in order to prevent the shutdown of critical health services.”

Inos then asked the CDA chair to advise Finance Secretary Larissa Larson as soon as the reprogrammed funds have been transferred.

The acting governor was able to reprogram bond earnings and CIP repayment balances from CDA after declaring a state of emergency at CHC late afternoon Thursday. The declaration allowed Inos to suspend all statutory or regulatory provisions and provided him the ability to reprogram available and authorized resources to address the emergency.

Senate Standing Committee on Health and Welfare chair Sen. Ralph DLG. Torres (R-Saipan) said he is thrilled with the acting governor’s reprogramming of much needed funds to help CHC get out of emergency.

“I’m ecstatic that the acting governor reprogrammed funds to accommodate the needs of CHC. At least the vendors will be partly paid and medical supplies and reagents would again be supplied to the hospital,” he said.

Torres wrote to Inos early Thursday, alerting the acting governor that the CHC laboratory lacks medical supplies and 21 different kinds of reagents necessary for tests such as etoh, carbamazapine, cultures (except blood), and creatinine.

Torres also told Inos that CHC’s emergency room lacks physicians necessary to treat emergency patients and those who were available are “incapable of properly diagnosing and treating patients to prevent disability and death because important diagnostic tests such as CBC, cultures, lytes, kidney tests, and heart attack tests are not available at CHC.”

The state of emergency declaration at CHC, which also covers the Tinian and Rota health centers, was made because of the “imminent threat of disruption in the delivery of critical healthcare services and its ability to keep the doors open to ‘healthcare facilities’ due to a severe cash shortage.”

This cash shortage, the declaration said, has resulted in arrears in payments to vendors of pharmaceutical, medical, dialysis, and food supplies. A number of vendors have already stopped deliveries to CHC and the Tinian and Rota health centers and many more are threatening to do the same because of the lack of payment.

The shortage of supplies, meanwhile, has resulted in physicians unable to furnish many services that may only be safely furnished by a hospital.

This CHC emergency declaration marks the second time that the hospital was placed under a state of emergency. The first time was in 2009 and only covered the hospital and the Department of Public Health.