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DPH gets five more Medicare-approved stations
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Posted on Aug 02 2005
The Department of Public Health Division of Hotel Administration has announced that the ESRD Program at the Commonwealth Health Center has been granted five more Medicare-approved stations.
Public Health deputy secretary for hospital administration Joaquin I. Taitano said Monday that the new approved stations would give the dialysis unit an expanded capacity and flexibility to better address the needs of the ESRD Community.
Taitano said the addition of six back-up machines would reduce the stress on the present equipment as machines could be more easily rotated for service.
He said the unit could now accommodate 32 new patients and still retain one emergency chair on each of the four shifts that is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday shift schedules. The additional stations would mean more flexibility for patients would need to change shifts to attend rosaries, novenas and funerals with their family members.
“We can move many of [the] fourth shift patients to 1st, 2nd or 3rd shifts,” Taitano said. These changes would mean that the 4th shift patients would no longer be going home at midnight or later than that, he added. Taitano however said they would remain to accommodate anyone who is working and needing a later dialysis.
He said the transient patients from Guam could still continue to come and DPH could better maintain its working relationship with the Guam facilities.
“Now that we are able to accept visitors, we can encourage tourism by offering another service to ESRD travelers,” said Taitano.
