Some staff of the Commonwealth Health Center may have a merrier Christmas this year, with the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. administration looking at adjusting salaries around December.<\/p>\n
According to CHCC chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a, the move has already been discussed by the corporation board when it met several months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certain areas in the hospital side that hasn\u2019t gotten a raise for a long time and that\u2019s the laboratory and the nursing. Those are the things that we\u2019re going to address. Especially when you have a laboratory that is Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-certified already, we need to start thinking about how to retain those individuals,\u201d Mu\u00f1a told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
She said they met with the nursing leadership to get feedback on the restructuring of nurses\u2019 salaries.<\/p>\n
She said the adjustment will be a tiered salary based on location, census, and acuity of care that the staff provides.<\/p>\n
Muna said the salary rate has never moved since the CNMI government instituted austerity measures in 2001. Staff nurses currently get $33,000 per annum.<\/p>\n
She said adjusting salaries would also help them retain employees as competition from other hospitals and locations has been tougher because of the shortage that is being experienced not only in the CNMI but in other islands and in the U.S. mainland as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that is necessary, especially because there\u2019s so much competition in this region to basically get the best people to come and work and provide healthcare services,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said. \u201cIt is a matter of ensuring that we provide our services to our people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said the hospital already lost a handful of nursing staff to Guam. Even now, a number of nurses are set to leave CHC soon.<\/p>\n
She noted that it\u2019s becoming tougher to keep staff in the CNMI as the rate of resignation is faster than the rate of hiring and that they need to act on this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really need to address the situation, we need to be competitive. And we need to recognize those workers that really put so much years in CHCC and are doing a great job,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said. \u201cIf we want to keep them, we need to compensate them.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the adjustment in compensation, the hospital also hopes to address the staff shortage as well as overtime issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall goal is to look at compensation and avoid overtime. If we address the staff shortage, we address overtime,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said. \u201cPaying overtime is really not helping us at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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