The four-member Tinian Legislative Delegation is again asking the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. to restore the free meals for Tinian and Rota hemodialysis patients, saying that there are other areas where CHC could cut spending, including non-hiring of non-essential employees at this time.<\/p>\n
The delegation is also requesting CHC to provide an \u201caccurate description of [its] financial situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senate Vice President Jude Hofschneider (R-Tinian) said providing free meal to Tinian and Rota patients is a \u201cminiscule obligation,\u201d which he estimates at $50,000 a year that could be an equivalent of one employee\u2019s salary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a hard time believing that CHC does not have the money for the patients\u2019 meal when they continue to hire non-essential employees. We could understand if they are hiring doctors, but they continue to hire administrative employees,\u201d Hofschneider told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider said after some Tinian officials made their formal request with CHC to restore the patients\u2019 free meal, the delegation also wrote a Feb. 7 letter asking the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of Feb. 15, we haven\u2019t received a response from CHC. They are still not restoring the free meal to these patients. These patients are not here by choice. If the services provided on Saipan are also provided on Tinian and Rota, they won\u2019t come here. Another thing we\u2019re concerned about is that CHC should continue to provide the meal because theirs is approved by nutritionists,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider, in his one-page letter to CHC chief executive officer Juan N. Babauta, said although the delegation is cognizant of CHC\u2019s financial situation, they are \u201cdisappointed\u201d by its decision to stop providing meal service to Tinian and Rota patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurthermore, it is displeasing to learn that while you have decided to cut this miniscule service and burden employees with austerity measures, you were still able to hire new employees and offer certain current employees a raise. These actions send a very confusing message to the Delegation and the [CNMI] Legislature, with whom you are requesting to assist CHC with its monetary problems,\u201d he told Babauta.<\/p>\n
Babauta issued a memo stating that meal services and bottled water for Rota and Tinian medical referral patients staying at the guest house will be discontinued on Feb. 1, 2012, and these services may only resume if funding is made available.<\/p>\n
CHC was not able to pay on time its non-essential employees on Friday, and Babauta asked the Legislature to immediately approve an $11.58 million line of credit bill that will help CHC with its finances until it gets back on its feet. The House passed the bill on Monday, but the Senate won\u2019t have a session until Feb. 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The four-member Tinian Legislative Delegation is again asking the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. to restore the free meals for Tinian and Rota hemodialysis patients, saying that there are other areas where CHC could cut spending, including non-hiring of non-essential employees at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}