CHCC employees: Healthcare is better now

Employees of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. believe the corporation is better off now, compared to when it had a governing body overseeing its operations.

CHCC employees who were there during the time when the Department of Health was still in charge of the lone hospital in the CNMI, the Commonwealth Health Center, said the hospital has been improving since its days of being under DPH.

“When the hospital was under the government it was hard to get supplies. It was hard to get money to purchase what we needed here, so we had to do what we can with what we have,” said an employee of CHC’s billing department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“When we became a corporation, it got better because we controlled the money that was being used [for the hospital],” she added, saying that an additional layer of authority is not desirable when it came to emergency situations.

The employee of the billing department has been working for CHC since 2002 to early 2012 before resigning and then later returning in 2013. The employee has been at CHC since then and has served the hospital for a total of 14 years.

When asked about her thoughts on the imposition of a governing board to manage CHCC, she replied that she was not against the authority of the board and wished for experienced people to look over CHCC operations.

“I am not against the governing board. I just want people that have knowledge in the field of healthcare, because it is hard to work with people who do not understand what needs to be done in a hospital.”

She said differences in priorities may take place because of the lack of experience of board members.

“I hope [the future board] will listen to what we have to say and what we know. I hope they don’t just cut in and try to drastically change the situation of CHCC. I am not against working with the governing board if they know what they are doing. It is hard to work with people that do not have knowledge in providing proper healthcare,” she said.

Most CHCC employees are worried about their ability to continue receiving funds from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In earlier interviews, CHCC CEO Esther Muna said 70 percent of patients coming to CHC rely on Medicaid funding.

According to official sources, CHCC has been hiring more doctors and has seen an improvement in bill collections since being a corporation.

The CHCC advisory board has been inactive since 2015 due to the lack of appointees. Three terms of five members expired in 2015, while the rest expired last year.

The CHCC board used to be made up board chair Joaquin Torres, vice chair Peter Delacruz, and Anthony Raho representing Saipan, while Roy Rios, and Philipp Mendiola-Long represented Rota and Tinian respectively.

Appointments for the new governing CHCC board have yet to be made.

The currently non-existent CHCC board will be transformed from being an advisory body to a governing one after Gov. Ralph DLG Torres signed House Bill 19-186 into law as Public Law 19-78.