While the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. has been successful in hiring more doctors for the Commonwealth Health Center, there remains a challenge to fill the orthopedic surgeon position after it was disclosed that the arrival of the prospective candidate could take some time.<\/p>\n
Interim CEO Esther Mu\u00f1a told the board Thursday that the candidate who has been chosen to fill the post is still working on his papers in order to be able to work at the public hospital.<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a did not disclose the name of the candidate but said the physician was recruited from off-island through the J-1 visa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing pretty good [in the recruitment] and the only issue we have now is the orthopedic surgeon,\u201d Mu\u00f1a told the board.<\/p>\n
She disclosed that the candidate\u2019s J-1 visa was initially rejected by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s spending his own money now basically to hire lawyers in the U.S. for the J-1 visa that was rejected,\u201d she said, adding that the physician has asked that his waiver be transferred to the CNMI so he could start working for the hospital.<\/p>\n
For other vacant positions, Mu\u00f1a said she has been getting several inquiries and referrals for doctors\u2019 positions. In fact, she said, CHC expects to get one internal medicine physician soon, to bring the IM doctors\u2019 count to five.<\/p>\n
By summer, the pediatric department is expected to have six doctors from the current four.<\/p>\n
The general surgery department, she disclosed, now has two doctors while an anesthesiologist is expected to be hired soon. This, she said, is a replacement position.<\/p>\n
According to Mu\u00f1a, the corporation is implementing a \u201cconsistent and centralized\u201d recruitment for all positions where each and every application is thoroughly reviewed, including checking of references and police records.<\/p>\n
She also cited the important function of the credentials committee in determining the right candidate for medical positions.<\/p>\n
At the meeting, trustee Philip Mendiola-Long asked the board to seek a legal opinion regarding the board\u2019s participation in the credentialing of staff.<\/p>\n
In reviewing Public Law 16-51, which created the corporation and its board, Mendiola-Long expressed concern about the mandates of the law that requires the advisory board\u2019s \u201coversight\u201d over the credentialing staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat step in the process do we need to get involved in credentialing staff? Is it after or before the signing of contract?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Trustee Anthony Raho said that \u201ccredentialing is a hospital function\u201d and that it must take ownership of that. He said the role of the board is only an \u201coversight of the credentialing process\u201d to ensure that policies and procedures are in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. has been successful in hiring more doctors for the Commonwealth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[666,26,92],"class_list":["post-29277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chcc","tag-cnmi","tag-commonwealth-health-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29277","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\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}