CHC down to 2 ER doctors but 5 joining in September

The shortage of doctors and physicians at the Commonwealth Health Center, especially at the Emergency Room, will finally be solved as five new physicians are on their way to the CNMI public hospital.

Medical affairs director Dr. Robin Shearer told Saipan Tribune Thursday that the new physicians would join them in September.

The CHC’s Emergency Room currently has only two ER doctors.

Shearer said the hospital management is doing its best to cope with the situation and that he himself is helping out in attending patients.

“We are doing quite well,” he said.

By October this year, he said the Emergency Room would be in better shape in terms of appropriate number of doctors. Right now, he said, the hospital is doing the best it can to provide services to the community.

The hospital is targeting to complete the number of doctors needed in the ER, aiming for at least eight doctors for ER. By next month they would have seven resident physicians to attend to CNMI patients.

Shearer earlier said CHC would have a total of 33 physicians this August, slightly down from the original number of 40. He said these physicians work at all medical units of the hospital.

On the recruitment of the new physicians, Shearer said he is in constant communication with the hospital’s recruiting arm, which informed him last week that the salary rate given to physicians in Canada just went up to $160 per hour, leading to the difficulty in hiring physicians from the mainland and North America.

Shearer admitted that the CNMI could not match the salaries given to medical doctors in the mainland. He said people come to the CNMI not because of compensation, but for the conducive and healthy living atmosphere on the island.

“That [reason] has become less attractive nowadays due to the [high] cost of travel and living,” he said.

One of the problems, Shearer said, that contributes to the decline in the number of doctors in the CNMI is that physicians here have no overtime pay since their salaries are fixed. He said extra work other than the required number of work hours becomes just part of regular duty.

He denied that doctors are resigning from the hospital due to mismanagement. He said five physicians resigned in May this year but not all at the same time.

He said the reasons for the resignations are varied. One doctor left because her one-year contract had already ended and she needed to return to the U.S. mainland.

Shearer said the CNMI is allowed to hire only those physicians who were trained in the United States or Canada and this restriction limits the CHC’s hiring options.