Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez , in a statement yesterday, said at the time he met with the Korean nurses, “several of them indicated that they were promised future work at CHC” by Jay Kim, Simon Sin and La Paloma Co.
He said Kim, Shin and La Paloma Co. may have charged a large or excessive fee to bring the nurses here.
Public Health, Villagomez said, never advertised or solicited for Korean nurses to come and work as interns at CHC.
He said it was irresponsible on the part of Kim, Sin and La Paloma “to have brought these nurses to Saipan and made them promises for things not yet agreed to or outside of their control.”
Hee Sang Lee, auditor of the Korean Association of Saipan, said Sin told him a Korean nurse has to pay $6,000 to be brought here.
Sin, in a separate interview, denied this, saying the amount is not a “fee” but includes apartment rent.
Villagomez said last July, Kim, Sin and La Paloma contacted then-hospital administrator Joseph Santos regarding the possibility of bringing in Korean nurses to CHC as interns.
He said Santos indicated a willingness to consider the plan but never made any promises on behalf of CHC to actually employ any Korean nurses as interns.
Kim, Sin and La Paloma brought the nurses to the hospital about three weeks ago “without any agreement or plan in place,” Villagomez said.
He added that Kim and his colleagues have now “sought to force CHC into accepting these nurses into an internship program that does not exist.”
According to Villagomez, an internship program needs a sanctioned curriculum and a full-time staff nurse or an instructor assigned to ensure that the participating students or nurses are following the curriculum and accomplishing the program’s goals.
He said CHC is in no position to create such a program because the primary goals of the employed nurses at the hospital are to ensure proper patient care and not serve as instructors to visiting interns.
This is the reason nursing students from Northern Marianas College, the Loyola University in the CNMI and Emmanuel College have their own sanctioned curricula and their instructors are always present at CHC when their students are doing their clinical rotation, Villagomez said.
He added that it is “unfortunate that these Korean nurses may have unreasonably relied on the promises of Kim, Sin and La Paloma to their detriment….”
“Any suggestion by Kim, Sin or La Paloma Co. that this situation is the responsibility of [Public Health] and CHC is grossly misplaced,” Villagomez said.
