Public Health Director Roxanne Diaz and comprehensive cancer control program coordinator Joanne Ogo joined Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos yesterday in proclaiming January as Cervical Cancer Prevention Month.
Diaz said cervical cancer is a preventable chronic disease but only if the government will continue investing in public health prevention programs.
She said like cervical cancer, chronic diseases need to be addressed in a “more unified approach” with policies being enforced properly.
The sin tax money, she said, has to fund the healthcare system’s preventive programs as envisioned by the law.
“This sin tax money needs to be protected to be used by the Commonwealth Health Center for health purposes,” Diaz said.
Public Law 13-38 established the tobacco control fund and allotted the sin tax collection to the then-Department of Public Health’s monitoring activities on cancer and other tobacco-related illnesses in the CNMI; prenatal and maternal care; and comprehensive school health education programs to be administered jointly by Public Health and the Public School System.
But that was the time when the healthcare system was under the control of the government.
Public Law 16-51 or the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation Act, however, abolished the Department of Public Health and turned CHC into a corporation.
CHC was given only $5 million in seed money. It’s not going to get anything from the general fund where sin tax money is transferred.
The fiscal year 2012 budget earmarked over $1.3 million in sin tax collections for public health purposes.
According to Inos, “the appropriation act actually suspended the application of those earmarked revenues. So they, the sin tax monies, are basically made available to the general fund.”
The cancer control program, Ogo said, has two goals this January — to encourage women 21 years old and above to get screened for cervical cancer, and encourage parents of girls nine to 18 years old to get HPV vaccination in private clinics or at CHC.
The cancer control program also plans to conduct “health walks” every Wednesday throughout the month.
Diaz said most of Public Health’s programs are federally funded.
Right now, as the former department transitions into a public corporation, she said “we are really looking at prioritizing programs that we can sustain long-term.”
But local funding has dwindled and diminished, she added, so funding is really an issue.
Investments in public health and prevention programs should continue, she said.
“What I hope the administration and Legislature will do is to really look at how to address chronic diseases as a whole,” she added.
