In a meeting last Wednesday at the Saipan Grand Hotel, representatives from the government agencies that will cooperate with the Oceania committee took a look at the entire program so that they could determine the size of manpower they would send to the tournaments.
The local organizing committee has tapped Department of Public Safety, its Emergency Medical Service, the Department of Public Health, the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs and Commonwealth Utilities Corporation to assist in hosting the Oceania tournaments.
More or less 300 visiting athletes, federation officials and other companions from 21 member federations are expected to come on different schedules from June 13 all the way to the first day of the tournaments.
The participants in the 2008 Oceania tournaments are teams Australia and New Zealand and other OAA member federations, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga and Vanuatu.
But aside from the 2008 Oceania events, the Asia-Pacific Regional Baseball Tournament will also be held on June 25, at the Francisco Palacios Baseball field which is just a stone-throw away from the Oceania venue.
So teams from Asian countries like the Philippines and Indonesia will also be arriving on the island prior to the schedule.
The great concern they are now trying to address, according to committee chairman Rep. Ramon A. Tebuteb, is the health issue not only for the sake of the visiting athletes but also for the CNMI residents as well.
The Department of Public Health he said will be working closely with the OAA’s assigned physician in checking the health conditions of the visiting athletes and their companions when they arrive on the island.
There are countries in Asia-Pacific region that are plagued with dengue, malaria and other communicable diseases so the local organizing committee wants to be preventive in handling such a big and world-class sports events.
Both the Department of Public Health and the OAA-tapped physician have their own standard procedures in checking the health of the visitors.
Officer Jerry Ayuyu who represents the DPS in the committee took note of the Oceania programs so that they could hatch out a plan in coordinating with the committee.
Aside from providing safety in the Oceania venue and the surrounding areas, the DPS will also assign personnel to the “athletes villages”—the hotels that accommodated the visiting athletes.
