Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive office Esther L. Muna, MHA, cautions against changing the organizational structure of CHCC, especially now that it has improved the hospital\u2019s standards despite the lack of funds. Muna spoke to lawmakers last Thursday with some of her comments directed at House Bill 19-186.<\/p>\n
HB 19-186, introduced by Rep. Felicidad T. Ogumoro (R-Saipan), is an act to give the board of trustees the powers and duties of governing, managing, and controlling the affairs of CHCC. The CEO currently has those powers under the law, Public Law 16-51. That same law gives the seven-member board an advisory role only. <\/p>\n
Muna said CHCC has some concerns with HB 19-186 as the Committee Report 19-136 by the House Health and Welfare Committee chaired by Ogumoro has no clear reason why as a repealer and reenactment for PL 16-51 is necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the members of the Joint Health Committees acknowledged [in last week\u2019s] hearing that there were significant improvements at CHCC. Some of those improvements would not have occurred if it weren\u2019t for the structure created by PL 16-51,\u201d said Muna.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I am requesting that caution should be made when changing a structure that has managed to ensure there are improvements to our health system and ensure quality standards are set, despite the lack of funding this structure receives on the annual appropriation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hospital board usually specifies financial objectives, ensure capital is effectively located, enhance credit worthiness, and advocate for the hospital in all arenas.<\/p>\n
\u201cCHCC is not just a hospital as we are also responsible for all public health services, public behavioral health services, and public clinics on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. A politically appointed board which \u2018governs, manages, and controls\u2019 the CHCC runs far outside the lines of best practices,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Senate vice president Arnold I. Palacios (R-Saipan) lauded Muna and her entire team at CHCC for getting over a lot of challenges like the lack of funding. \u201cFunding continues to be an issue and we are impressed with the limited resources they have, they\u2019ve gone over the real challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Muna, doctors, and other staff attended last week\u2019s Joint Committee on Health and Welfare Committee meeting since the transmittal of HB 19-186 was part of the agenda where they wanted to make sure legislators won\u2019t act on it. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe bill wants to reorganize CHCC\u2019s current organizational structure,\u201d said Palacios. \u201cWhether we want to keep going back and forth, I think we need to get input from CHCC and from the community members so that once and for all we could come up with an organized structure that would stabilize healthcare system.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive office Esther L. Muna, MHA, cautions against changing the organizational…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[666,1860,13933,1158],"class_list":["post-239063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chcc","tag-hb","tag-joint-health-committees","tag-pl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239063","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}