“We are in the middle of getting the facility approved by Medicare for operations this year,” Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez said yesterday.
In an e-mail, Villagomez said Medicare inspectors visited Saipan several weeks ago and identified all the steps that still need to be done to get the facility certified.
“Once we are done with those steps, they will come back and do their final inspection,” he said.
Medicare inspection and approval are required “so that they will reimburse us for all the cost of providing the treatment,” Villagomez said, adding that final inspections will most likely happen in September.
He said in the meantime, CHC is still using the old facility because it is certified by Medicare.
Johnny S. Aldan, CHC dialysis center’s acting manager, said the facility’s design had to be renovated — some counters were too high and nurses assigned in the area could not see their patients.
Aldan said the designs were already “corrected” but they still lack some equipment for the new facility.
He said they may transfer the dialysis machine from the old building, but they have to comply with the requirements of the Medicare.
The new center aims to ease the overcrowding at the old dialysis center and reduce the number of patients that need to be sent off-island.
The number of dialysis patients in the CNMI has more than doubled since 1996 when there were only 44 patients.
The new facility is expected to accommodate up to 24 stations.
CHC currently has 14 and due to its limited capacity, it has to conduct midnight hemodialysis treatment.
According to Aldan, they have 98 patients who are treated separately with one patient undergoing three sessions everyday.
He said there’s a need of more equipment because the number of patients is increasing every month.
