The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is starting to feel the pressure as the CW-1 issue creeps up on it. The corporation, which runs the CNMI\u2019s lone public hospital, expects to lose more than half of its nurses come December 2017. <\/p>\n
If worse comes to worst, the Commonwealth Health Center may have to close down some clinics to make up for the lack of manpower, according to CHCC chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t have any solutions [to the lack of manpower], then it is a possibility that we would have to close a few of the clinics,\u201d Mu\u00f1a told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
If that happens, only the emergency and non-acute area of the hospital will remain operational, Mu\u00f1a said. That includes the emergency room, the dialysis center, the operating room, the hospital wards, and the ER office, to name a few.<\/p>\n
Clinics that would likely close temporarily include the women\u2019s clinic, children\u2019s clinic, adult clinic, and quite possibly the program clinics such as the immunization clinics, Mu\u00f1a said. <\/p>\n
Expensive solution<\/strong><\/p>\n A possible solution that CHCC is looking at to avert closing down the clinics is to avail of nurse staffing agencies. <\/p>\n Nurse staffing agencies are like manpower agencies but they focus solely on providing nursing manpower, or \u201ctravelling nurses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTravelling nurses\u201d are nurses that belong to larger organizations that provide manpower to hospitals at a cost. <\/p>\n \u201cThose are just some of the options but they are more expensive,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n As a temporary solution to the CW crisis, CHCC would be paying the nurse-staffing agency to provide nurses that are ready to work. Mu\u00f1a stressed that that solution is temporary.<\/p>\n \u201c[The nurses] are not here to move and take over the jobs [of those that had to exit the CNMI],\u201d said Mu\u00f1a. \u201cWe are already making communication with someone to try and provide these services. There is actually some interest to come to Saipan.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Worsens the situation\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Future dependence on nursing staff agencies are costly. Mu\u00f1a said that availing of these services \u201cactually worsens\u201d the financial situation of CHCC.<\/p>\n Mu\u00f1a pointed out that CHCC relies on a reimbursement method of payment, meaning that CHCC first pays for the services it offers to patients.<\/p>\n \u201cIf [CHCC] uses an expensive resource pool, we cannot just increase our rate for the sake of covering that expense,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a. \u201cWhen you determine your rate for fees, it is based on your costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Without additional appropriations from the central government, Mu\u00f1a does not see the nurse staff agencies as a permanent solution to the manpower problems of CHCC.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t have the funding, then the likelihood is that we have to increase our rates to pay for these services. That\u2019s the option, basically,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A common problem with manpower agencies of any type is the availability of people. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you are contacting somebody for their services, [it ultimately depends] on the availability [of the nurse]. Again, [CHCC] is not the only one tapping into this kind of business,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n In official CHCC documents obtained by Saipan Tribune, 182 employees are scheduled to exit the CNMI, five of which are H-1B employees.<\/p>\n Of the 171 set to exit, 125 are nurses, with three from the Rota Health Center and five from the Tinian Health Center. The total population of nurses is 137, including those at the Rota and Tinian health centers. <\/p>\n According to Mu\u00f1a, top priority goes to taking care of CHCC staff because \u201cit is directly in line with patient care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is starting to feel the pressure as the CW-1 issue creeps…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[666,26,2364,38],"class_list":["post-248947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-chcc","tag-cnmi","tag-esther-mu","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248947","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}