For example, this week, CHC issued a press release regarding the two-year renewal of the medical director’s contract. Just a day later, the physician confirmed that she resigned from her position citing personal reasons as the basis for her departure. Is the hospital deliberately putting out misleading information or are Public Health officials unaware of what is going on at their own HR office?
The hospital continues to lose good physicians and Public Health continues to say after each departure that salaries aren’t sufficient to recruit physicians in this “competitive environment.”
Salaries, unfortunately, are not the entire problem. Sometimes good physicians and staff leave their patients and these islands for no other reason than working conditions at the hospital that are not conducive to good patient care. The signs are there for the public and government officials to read — if they care to pay attention.
Demanding transparency in government and better government service is a civic responsibility. After all, you, the taxpayer, are paying for it. But if the people and their elected officials continue to ignore the real problems at CHC which its officials refuse to talk about, then be prepared for a further deterioration of public services at your hospital.
It’s the NMI’s fault
IN recent days, the administration noted that this year’s allocation of capital improvement funds from the U.S. Department of the Interior would be reduced by several millions of dollars. This should come as no surprise to those paying attention to what’s happening on Capital Hill.
The financial terms are spelled out in the last Covenant financial agreement. If the commonwealth doesn’t perform well, it will suffer a loss of capital improvement and other funds which can be allocated to other territories that perform well. Performance is measured by identifying projects that are adequately justified, planned and properly procured. This can only happen if qualified technical staff are available to do this work.
But despite being part of a government that has over 4,000 employees, the Department of Public Works has not had the proper staffing for years. It was inevitable that the commonwealth would lose important federal funding.
This is another chronic problem that has been pointed out for several years now but wasn’t adequately addressed and will now result in the loss of millions of capital improvement dollars.
The public suffers twice — from the absence of important projects and the loss of future dollars to build needed projects in the future.
School’s out; watch out
GRADUATION is approaching and with it a summer free of school for most kids. As often happens, however, the initial weeks are marked by an increase in vandalism and other kinds of mischief.
Happily, there are publicly and privately funded summer activities for kids from summer jobs to computer classes. Check with your schools, the local library, the youth affairs office and the hotels for special projects and the various retail outlets for summer jobs.
There are also privately funded options in music, swimming, tennis, art and many other pursuits.
No summer activity, however, can substitute for the time that parents can put aside to spend with their children, talking, reading, picnicking, bicycling, or watching movies at the theater together.
Parents must find the time to spend with their children when it is most important to these kids.
