The official opening of the Alternate Care Site at Kanoa Resort and its handover to the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. means the CNMI will be \u201cready for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the sentiment of Esther Mu\u00f1a, CHCC chief executive officer, to underscore the importance of the Torres-Palacios administration\u2019s handover of the ACS to CHCC last Oct. 28, 2020. <\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a has been reading about how hospitals around the world don\u2019t have enough rooms for patients, which leads them to place beds outside hospitals to accommodate the surge of COVID-19 infections. This is what Mu\u00f1a said she wants to avoid. <\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a hopes the CNMI will never have to use the ACS, which was built to accommodate a potential surge in COVID-19 infections in the Commonwealth. If ever that happens, though, Mu\u00f1a said that CHCC will be ready. She said their intentions for the ACS is for testing, isolation, quarantine, etc., in order to protect the community. This system is being touted as a means to \u201cstop the spread.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said there are no talks right now on the topic of what will happen if the ACS isn\u2019t ever used.<\/p>\n
The facility will be managed by the staff of CHCC. Having the ACS, Mu\u00f1a said, means their staff will have the tools to combat COVID-19 infections. \u201cHaving the staff of CHCC take over means that they will make sure the health care services provided at the ACS meet standards, she said. That means the CHCC staff will ensure that there\u2019s more than enough medical supplies, assisting in infection control, and helping in ways that they can. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be the people. So the facility itself, being ready for those people to be there to do their job, in case of a surge or in case we (CNMI) need it, it\u2019s basically ready for us to do that,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
The ACS being the designated site for COVID-19 positive patients means CHCC will be able to separate non-COVID-19 patients and COVID-19 patients, and also know which staff is at the ACS. The intent is also to make sure that CHCC staff are also protected, Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n
As of Oct. 28, Mu\u00f1a stated that patients who are currently in isolation are in hotel rooms and not at the facility. \u201cThankfully, they\u2019re not having symptoms. One of them did have symptoms, but basically has been treated, so they haven\u2019t been really elevated to an acute care facility hospital facility,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a. <\/p>\n
That means that, as of now, the CNMI\u2019s COVID-19 patients are still okay. If there is an acute care hospital need, which means that their underlying health conditions have deteriorated and they have worsened, then that\u2019s when they are going to be moved to the ACS. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The official opening of the Alternate Care Site at Kanoa Resort and its handover to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":330354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332803","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}