An emotional Senate Floor Leader Pete P. Reyes and Sen. Jovita M. Taimanao noted the substantial changes made to Senate Bill 17-76 which will create an emergency medical services commission to regulate private and public ambulance services in the CNMI.
Reyes, R-Saipan, and Taimanano, Ind.-Rota, lashed out at Senate Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Ralph DLG Torres when they saw that the bill on the calendar was different from the one originally introduced.
Taimanao is the bill’s author.
Torres, R-Saipan, moved to defer action on S.B. 17-76, saying his committee will continue to work with ambulances services on the island.
But Reyes, the vice chairman of the committee, criticized Torres for “completely turning the bill around and ignoring what they, the Senate, were trying to do in the original bill.”
“We are playing games here. This is not the time [to do that] as businesses are knocking on our door but we’re trying to block them out,” Reyes said.
“I think there’s some kind of crazy games going on here. Every time we put it on [the calendar] we’re not sure what’s going,” he added.
Taimanao agreed. She said she supports the passage of S.B. 17-76 but the bill on the calendar was no longer the one she introduced.
“I don’t want to act on it as amended. It’s not my bill anymore,” she said.
S.B. 17-76 received strong support from a private ambulance service provider, St. Michael’s Medical Response, but was opposed by officials of the Department of Public Safety’s Emergency Medical Services.
Under the original bill, the commission will have the power to regulate emergency and non-emergency medical service facilities, vehicles, personnel, equipment, supplies and communications systems engaged in providing emergency or non-emergency medical services. It will also promulgate rules and regulations for the operation and implementation of the EMS system.
But the substitute bill prepared by Torres’ committee took these powers from the commission and gave them to EMS.
In an interview, Torres said his committee gave everybody the opportunity to bring up their concerns about the bill.
The changes, he said, were recommended by the fire division and his committee had to take them into consideration.
Torres noted that St. Michaels earlier said that its operations were not hampered by the lack of a commission.
Torres asked supporters of the original version: “How much funding the commission would need and where are we going to get it?”
Sen. Juan M. Ayuyu, Ind.-Rota, described S.B. 17-76 as a good bill, but he hates to hear people saying that it will serve the interest of a private ambulance firm.
“We are creating a commission here, and this is not St. Michael’s bill,” he added.
He then turned to Taimanao and said: “You’re the Fiscal Affairs Committee chairwoman, please identify the funding for this.”
Senate President Paul A. Manglona, Ind.-Rota, asked both sides to continue working on the bill in committee and to submit a report in the next session.
Reyes agreed to defer action on the bill but asked the clerk to keep it on the calendar for the first scheduled session next year.
