Rep. Ralph DLG Torres, R-Saipan, who chairs the committee, said he was told that there were no doctors in the emergency room and that the remaining doctors were already working on a 12-hour shift to meet the healthcare needs of patients.
“This should not be happening and I won’t allow this to happen,” Torres said in an interview yesterday.
“One of the biggest issues that we are encountering right now is the lack of doctors. We have a very high turnover rate among doctors. We are getting into the bottom of this,” he added.
But acting Public Health Secretary Pete Untalan denied they have no ER doctors.
He said there are two doctors assigned to the ER — Greg Kotheimer and Schirish Balachandra. A third, Dr. Rohringer, comes to the island every three months.
“We are in the process of recruiting more permanent ER doctors,” Untalan told the Variety.
Regarding the unusually long waiting period before a patient is seen in the ER, Untalan said CHC has limited medical staff and patients with more critical need are attended first like those brought in by an ambulance.
Those with non-life threatening complaints are attended and diagnosed first by nurses before the ER doctors see them, he said.
He admitted that some patients have been asked if they wanted to be referred to private clinics.
The acting Public Health secretary said it is extremely difficult to retain good doctors in the CNMI because Guam and other parts of the U.S. offer better benefits.
For instance, he added, Guam pays an anesthesiologist $275,000 a year. The same doctor can get up to $500,000 in the states, he added.
CHC can only pay its anesthesiologist $180,000 a year, Untalan said.
Isolation is another factor for low retention rate of doctors in the CNMI, he added.
A patient who went to the hospital’s ER said she waited from morning until sunset before she was finally attended to.
Another patient said she was told by a CHC staff member to go see a private doctor.
Shortage of medical staffers like doctors and nurses is nothing new at CHC.
This year, however, the problem has worsened, Torres said.
“What we should do is get good and quality doctors and retain them here,” he added.
Asked if there will be ER doctors this weekend, Untalan said there will be one doctor there.
He said “there are 101 problems at CHC,” and they are doing their best to address them.
“We will not let a critical service to be without a doctor,” Untalan added.
Dr. Timothy Taylor, one of CHC’s two psychiatrists, resigned last April.
Dr. Willie Gutowsky is the only doctor for CHC’s psychiatric ward and the Community Guidance’s Transitional Living Center.
Gutowsky said there should always be two psychiatrists at CHC.
